


A Brighter Love

by AeschylusRex



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Freezerburn - Freeform, Future AU, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Lancaster side pairing, Post Character Death, dark timeline fic with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2019-10-05 01:04:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17315156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeschylusRex/pseuds/AeschylusRex
Summary: Weiss loves Ruby, Ruby loves Jaune, and Yang loves all three of them way too much to get caught in the middle.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1.5.19  
> i'm serious about this being a dark timeline fic, y'all. it's not real depressing or anything, but do mind the tags.  
> fans of blake, i'm sorry! you've been warned.  
> enjoy~

1.

The text message comes through late.

It’s nearly midnight, and the middle of the week, so the streets are empty and the restaurants are closed. Yang’s a little buzzed herself when she finds Weiss crying in a downtown bar, huddled in a corner where the hanging lights don’t reach. The walls still bear the wounds of war, the ubiquitous cracks and fissures that run up into the plaster ceiling like spiderwebs, but the booths are real leather, and the tables are topped with travertine. Some establishments have managed, despite the construction delays and material shortages, to maintain an air of luxury.

Yang arrives underdressed in a loose red flannel, gym pants, and combat boots. Her eyes sweep across the room as she takes stock of the situation. Weiss’ drink is drained. The ice has begun to melt at the bottom of the glass and her straw lies discarded on a damp napkin.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Weiss ignores her. She carries on crying into her hands, drunk and smearing makeup between her fingers. Her hair is collar-length now, or else it might not look like such a mess, tied up tight the way she used to keep it when she was better at holding things inside.

Yang slides into the booth and hooks an arm around her shoulders.

“Is it Ruby?”

Weiss’ breath hitches. Her body tenses like the string of a bow, ready to loose an arrow. She aims her watery eyes at Yang and fires a killing shot.

“She loves him,” she sobs. “She told me she fucking loves him.”

Yang’s heart twists. “Tonight?”

Weiss nods and bows forward until her forehead is resting on the table. She’s trembling violently.

“I feel like I’m dying,” she chokes.

Yang slides a hand up her spine and presses hard between her shoulder blades. It’s a reassurance, a visceral grounding, a reminder of the anchors that will hold her here when Ruby’s is gone. Yang ignores the strange tightening sensation in her chest. She ignores the seed of dread sinking into the pit of her stomach and the fertile soil it finds there.

She curls her hand around the nape of Weiss’ neck, utters a quiet, “I’m sorry, babe”, and stays like that, pressed in close to her, until Weiss has finally stopped shaking.  

-

 

This bitter, unraveled version of Weiss is nothing new.

The disintegration began when Ruby vanished shortly after the end of the war. She was gone for 11 months, and in that time, a time which none of them really speak about anymore, Weiss went out of her mind with worry. She wasn’t the only one, of course, but there was something absolutely heartbreaking about it, like watching a navy wife wait for her husband to return from the sea. Of course, being a Schnee, Weiss didn’t sit around idly. She used her trust fund to pay for information and helped Yang track down leads. Rumors trickled in from the edges of civilization about a reaper in black and red, a phantom with a semblance of roses, but their efforts turned up nothing. Only cold trails.

It was Jaune, in the end, who found her. Ruby stepped off the airship in Vale, pale and ragged, with Jaune’s arm wrapped tight around her shoulders, and Yang saw the fading light in Weiss’ eyes at the station, with her white dress and her perfect hair. It all went to shit after that. Like a bad cliche. She took a pair of scissors to her perfect hair. She started wearing dark colors, slinky dresses, fishnets, and boots. She started drinking, like her mother, a warning sign Yang didn’t feel they could ignore, but which Ruby, still rattled, still disconcertingly absent, hadn’t seemed to notice.

They’re all on shaky ground these days.

Yang takes Weiss back to her place when the bartender throws them out at two because Jaune’s presence has turned Ruby and Weiss’ shared townhouse into a no-fly zone. She starts to ask whether Weiss would like to stop off and grab a change of clothes, but u-turns abruptly when Weiss’ expression darkens.

“You can just wear something of mine,” she says quickly, plunking Blake’s old helmet into Weiss’ hands. “Climb on.”

It’s a short ride from the center of town to Yang’s bombed out neighborhood by the harbor, but autumn has pushed a line of storms into the city, and the sky opens up halfway through. She takes her turns carefully, mindful of water on the uneven roads and of Weiss, who is drunk and tired, who clutches Yang tighter each time they accelerate. They’re both soaked by the time she pulls up her long drive and into the little standalone garage in the back.

“Fucking finally,” Weiss groans, wobbling back onto her feet.

She wrings out her dress onto the garage floor and shivers. Yang’s not sure how to read her unsteadiness, whether it’s the chill or the exhaustion, but it doesn’t much matter either way. The solution is the same. She takes Weiss by the hand and leads her around to the front porch.

Yang’s apartment is dark and empty, a simple studio on the top floor of an old Victorian house. They climb a creaky wooden staircase lined with a scuffed bannister and a threadbare carpet runner. On the third floor landing, Yang struggles with the sticky lock, cursing under breath as she uses her shoulder to force the door open. Beside her, Weiss, who is prone to impatience, says nothing. Her red-rimmed eyes remain fixed straight ahead. Her snowy hair hangs limp around her pale face.

“Hungry?” Yang asks, as they traipse inside.

“No thanks,” Weiss rasps.

Yang flicks on a lamp, illuminating a room decorated sparsely with a heavy punching bag, workout bench, and a rack of weights. Behind a curtain, which spans the length of the attic apartment, she’s carved out a bit of bedroom space for herself, with a queen-sized bed pushed into the corner next to a round, six-paned window, an oversized chest of drawers, and some soft fairy lights draped around the ceiling. Her closet is overflowing with training gear, and she’s compensated by purchasing some shelves, onto which she’s loaded a disorganized assortment of odds and ends.

Weiss glances around silently, radiating fatigue. There are no barbs tonight for Yang’s haphazard decorating. She only seems relieved to be near a bed.

Yang goes to her drawers and pulls out a baggy white undershirt and boxers. She holds them up to Weiss, who nods, and begins stripping off her wet dress. There isn’t time to look away when it becomes apparent that her dark bralette and panty set are sheer. Blinking quickly, Yang deposits the clothes on the end of her bed and spins around to grab a pair for herself.

“What’s wrong?” Weiss taunts unsteadily. “Am I so pathetic you can’t stand to look at me?”

Yang scoffs. “You’re naked.”

“I’m wearing shoes and underwear. So not completely naked.”

“Fine.” Yang whirls around. “Did you want me to stare?”

Weiss meets her gaze defiantly. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“Well, excuse me for being considerate,” Yang retorts, rolling her eyes.

“You don’t have to be considerate. I don’t require your consideration.”

“Okay, whatever.”

Yang unbuttons her own shirt brusquely and tosses it towards the closet. Her boots, bra, and pants come next. She’s never been shy. A glance at Weiss, however, makes her rethink her casual disregard for personal nudity. Weiss’ pale cheeks are stained pink, bottom lip caught between her teeth, eyes averted. She wavers slightly on her feet as Yang tugs on a black tank top and stalks past her to the kitchen.

“Get dressed before this gets weird,” Yang says drily. “I’m not pity fucking you while you’re crying over my sister.”

“Fuck you!” Weiss squawks behind her.

Yang just laughs as she goes to the fridge. There isn’t much food, but there are a few sports drinks and cans of green tea. She grabs a couple bottles and retrieves the aspirin from the cabinet up above. It’s best to be preemptive with hangovers. She takes a quick detour to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. When she returns Weiss is already tucked between the sheets. Yang’s borrowed shirt is big enough on her to be a regular nightshirt.

“Do you ever visit Blake?” Weiss asks somberly.

She’s on her back staring at the ceiling, and her expression is as blank as her eyes are haunted. Yang stops short with the drinks and aspirin in hand. Her mind conjures up an image of a white tombstone across town. There are clothes in her closet she can’t throw out and pictures she keeps saved in a special folder on her scroll.

“Sometimes,” she murmurs, turning her head away.

Weiss sighs. “I should just be grateful Ruby’s okay. I feel like an idiot crying over this.”

“Did you tell her how you feel?”

Weiss doesn’t answer. Yang exhales and continues over. She hands Weiss a purple sports drink and rattles out a couple of pills into the palm of her hand.

“Thanks,” Weiss says.

“You should lay off the drinking for a while.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she snipes.

She cracks her bottle, drinks a third of if in a single go, then swallows her pills and drinks some more. Yang switches off the lamp and the fairy lights and climbs in beside her. Raindrops patter against the attic window. Wind howls through the cracks in the eaves and thunder rumbles out over the bay.

“My sister’s pretty thick about feelings,” Yang says after a while. “She won’t figure it out unless you tell her.”

Weiss rolls onto her side. “What’s the point? She loves Jaune and they’re happy together. This doesn’t end well for me either way.”

Yang grunts, conceding the point. “Yeah, well. I just thought you might feel better getting it off your chest.”

“Maybe, but that’s a burden she doesn’t need.”

It’s true, Yang realizes. Ruby would only take the guilt upon herself, and this new Ruby, prone to isolation and dissociation, is more fragile than the young leader who set out for Mistral with nothing but a map and a pack of supplies. They can’t take any risks. Weiss is still thinking like a partner and a tactician. Never for the sake of her own emotions, which are messy and erratic now, thawed from their prison of ice.

“Don’t tell her,” Weiss whispers a minute later, speech slurred from fatigue.

“I won’t,” Yang whispers back.

Weiss shifts closer, tipping her forehead against Yang’s shoulder, and they drift off like that together.

-

 

Yang wakes to bright sunlight and twisted sheets, yanked suddenly from an incomprehensible dream by the droning of a leaf blower across the street. She passes a hand over her eyes. She’s sweaty and too warm. Her tank top has ridden up around her navel and a soft head is pillowed there, together with the slender thigh resting across own. She listens to the sound of quiet breathing, feels the slow undulation of narrow ribs against hers, and realizes it doesn't feel as strange as it should to wake up intertwined with someone new. 

She blinks several times and reaches for her scroll on the nightstand. At first her vision is too blurry and sore to read what’s on the screen, but when her eyes finally adjust, she groans.

“Weiss,” she nudges her bedmate, “wake up. It’s past noon.”

Weiss stirs, but doesn’t wake. Her fingers curl into Yang’s rumpled shirt. She’s out cold. Comatose.

“Jeez,” Yang murmurs.

She sighs and lets her eyes close. Her head is heavy and thick with mucus, a consequence of the late night and the rain. It’s not the first time she’s retrieved Weiss from some back corner table in the middle of the night, it’s not even the first time they’ve shared a bed, but it _is_ the first time Weiss has gotten so cuddly.

Yang’s fingers thread into snowy, tangled tresses and stroke softly along Weiss’ scalp.

“You made it weird,” she murmurs, to Weiss as much as to herself.

Her scroll vibrates with a message from Ruby.

_ >is weiss with you? _

Yang thinks about lying. She almost does. It’s an impulse she decides not to question, because questions lead to answers, and she doesn’t want answers for this.

> _yeah_

Ruby’s response comes quick.

> _is she okay?_

Yang bites her lip and Weiss shifts slightly in her sleep, as if she can sense the moral dilemma bouncing back and forth like a tennis ball in Yang’s head. It takes nearly five minutes before she’s decided how to reply.

> _yeah._ _i think she just needed some space_

Ruby replies again.

> _why didn't she_ _just say so instead of storming out?_

Yang fumbles for a neutral response.

> _idk sis_

Yang hits send and exhales heavily. This is a not a situation she needs to be in the middle of. If Ruby and Weiss have drama they can hash it out between themselves like adults. Like partners. Yang’s got stuff to do and bills to pay and no time for any of this.

And yet…

“Mmph.” Weiss stirs.

Her hair tickles Yang’s stomach. Her weight shifts, leg pressing infinitesimally higher, nose nudging into bare skin.

“Fuck,” Yang mumbles. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

-

 

Weiss won’t go home.

“It’s either here or a hotel,” she says crisply. “I’m not going back there.”

Yang lands another flurry of punches on her heavy bag and Weiss grunts with the effort of holding it in place. It’s been barely a week and already Yang’s apartment is showing signs of a hostile takeover. Shopping bags filled with new clothes purchased from some boutique sit atop Yang’s dresser. Her shower is crowded with fancy hair and body products, also purchased from some ridiculous salon. Even the fridge has been stocked with food. Weiss has been living hand to mouth, or as hand to mouth as any rich person could, borrowing whatever she needs and buying the rest.

It’s driving Yang a little nuts.

Not that she even minds Weiss’ presence so much as she minds the constant vigilance required to keep her own head on straight. Because they cuddle up and watch movies on her laptop at night until they both fall asleep, and Weiss orders breakfast from exclusive bakeries because she’s rich enough to circumvent the sugar rationing, and Yang is actually starting to like the smell of Weiss’ perfume on her things. She _likes_ having Weiss around. It’s vexing.

Yang hops back and wipes her face on her sleeve. The afternoon has gotten warm, and she’s dripping sweat in her spandex shorts and cutoff shirt. Weiss, who’s been practicing some sort of acrobatic balancing act in the communal back garden, is flushed pink and and swimming in another of Yang’s old shirts. With her hair pulled back and her makeup light she looks younger, and brighter, less like she might go on another heartbroken bender in all black designer clothes. Yang hates that she can’t just let it be.

“You’ve gotta face Ruby sometime,” she says.

Weiss hardly blinks. “No.”

“She doesn’t even know what’s wrong.”

“Yeah, the answer’s still no.”

“Weiss-“

“Look,” Weiss releases the bag and folds her arms across her chest, “I already said you could kick me out any time if I was becoming an inconvenience, so if you want me out, just say it.”

“That’s not what I-“ Yang starts to say, but Weiss is already walking away. “Hey, where are you going?”

“To shower. I need a night out of this dump.”

“Hey!”

Weiss smirks over her shoulder. “Sorry, but your dishwasher is crap, and those windows are definitely not sealed.”

“That hardly makes this a _dump_!”

“I’m going out!” Weiss calls, shutting the bathroom door. “You’re welcome to join me! Or not! Your choice!”

Yang grits her teeth and wallops the bag with bone-breaking right hook. The chains shiver and creak overhead. She doesn’t need to look in a mirror to know her eyes are blazing red.

“You get 10 minutes and then I’m dragging your bony ass out of there!” she yells. “You’re gonna drive up my water bill!”

“My ass isn’t bony!” Weiss yells back.

Yang growls in frustration and throws a series of punches at the bag. She’s seen a lot of Weiss’ ass in the last week. Enough to know the exact shape and size of it. Enough to know it isn’t really bony at all.

“Fuck!” she spits.

She kicks the bag and and stomps out the door for a much needed jog.

-

 

They go for dinner and drinks at a cozy little pub around the corner. There’s rubble still across the street, and the gutted concrete skeleton of an apartment building, yet another monument to the horrors of war. Yang sits across from Weiss in dark denim and leather, sucking down a light beer, pretending she hasn’t noticed the provocative plunge of her companion’s burgundy dress. She squirms under the weight of Weiss’ gaze, like blue crystal in the candlelight.

“It’s been two years,” Weiss is saying, with arms folded on the table. “All I’m saying is, you could use a rebound.”

Yang scoffs. “I don’t want a rebound. That is exactly the last thing I want.”

“So then date someone seriously, you know what I mean.” Weiss rolls her eyes. “You’ve been brooding for ages, and it’s not healthy.”

Yang’s temper flares bright and hot. She swallows slowly, flexing her hands, thinking calm thoughts.

“You’re one to talk,” she says after a pause.

“Yes,” Weiss retorts drolly, “I am.” She points to own her deadpan expression. “All the advice you’ve been giving me? You should give it to yourself.”

“And what’s that got to do with rebound sex?”

“I hear the best way to get over someone is get under someone new.”

“You definitely read that in a trashy magazine.”

“That doesn’t make it less true.” Weiss polishes off the dregs of her cocktail. “Suit yourself. Brood on into eternity, I guess.”

Yang shakes her head and peers off into the corner where a shabbily dressed man sits hunched over a poker machine. She’s flustered and annoyed, and dead sick of being turned about. She can’t help but wonder if this conversation isn’t a proxy for something else.

“I just…” Yang growls and runs her bionic hand through her hair. “I can’t do random hook ups, okay? It’s not my thing.”

She glances up and finds Weiss looking at her intently.

“...It wouldn’t necessarily _have_ to be random,” she suggests, drawing the words out slowly.

Yang squints across the table. Maybe she’s putting the puzzle pieces together too quickly, and maybe her logic is haphazard, but her heart is beating a little bit harder and the air has gotten a little bit thicker. It feels more and more all the time like there’s something heavy hanging over them, something neither of them are willing to wade into.

Yang tries for levity. Tries to clear away the strange atmosphere.

“I told you already,” she says, affecting a long-suffering tone, “I won’t pity fuck you while you’re crying over my sister.”

Weiss takes the bait. “Two can play at that game, loser. I won’t pity fuck you so you can pretend I’m Blake.”

Yang’s stomach swoops. “As if! You’d be nothing like Blake in bed.”

“Are you calling me bad at sex?”

“No. I’m calling this conversation weird and fucked up and probably unhealthy.”

“Why is it weird and unhealthy to want to sleep with you?”

Yang’s expression turns incredulous. “Because I’m Ruby’s sister?”

Weiss rolls her eyes. “Oh, thanks. I hadn’t noticed.”

“Wait.” Yang pushes her beer away, eyes wide. “Are you saying you’ve thought about it?”

“Thought about what?”

“You know _what_.”

“You’re being vague,” Weiss says snarkily. “Try using your grown up words.”

“Ugh!” Yang balls her hands into fists. “You’re so obnoxious sometimes!”

“Well, the feeling’s mutual,” Weiss snipes, rolling her eyes.

She stands from the table and adjusts the hem of her hip-hugging dress. She’s added a silver bar to the cartilage on her left ear and her eye makeup is smoky. She could be a completely different girl from the dainty ice princess who showed up at Beacon. It stirs something thick and molten in Yang’s gut. Her better judgement is stewing in a cauldron of conflicting desires.

“Where are you going?” she asks tersely, teeth clenched.

Weiss examines her hair in a little pocket mirror and tucks a bit over her ear. She slams the case shut and returns it to her purse.

“I’m going to find something stiffer than this watered down vodka soda you bought me.”

“I thought we agreed you’d take it easy.”

Weiss shoots her a look. “I never agreed to anything.”

“But-“

“Just because you enjoy pontificating doesn’t mean I enjoy listening.”

Yang stands abruptly, nearly knocking the glasses over. “You know what? You’re starting to seriously piss me off.”

Weiss smirks and gives Yang a dark look. “Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?”

Yang steps closer, looming over Weiss in her spiky heels. “Something you won’t like.”

“Like what?” Weiss’ teasing turns to scorn. “Hit me? Shove me? Pull my hair?” She leans in so close that Yang can smell the vodka on her breath. “Or maybe you’d rather push me up against a wall in the back and teach me a lesson.”

Yang’s breath snags. “Shut up.”

“Do you like it when I stay the night?”

“Shut _up_.”

“Do you feel guilty ‘cause I’m not her? Or maybe it bugs you that I love your sister.”

Yang shoves her away. Weiss stumbles, but she regains her footing with ease. The look on her face is vicious. If this is a test, Yang has already failed.

Tears sting at the corners of her eyes.

“What are you trying to prove right now?” Yang asks thickly.

An edge of self-loathing creeps into Weiss’ expression. She turns her head away and shrinks into herself.

“Seriously,” Yang presses, “what are you trying to prove?”

“Nothing,” Weiss mutters.

“Stop trying to pick a fight with me. I’m the only lifeline you’ve got right now.”

Weiss sucks in a sharp breath and pins her heavy blue eyes on Yang. Yang can only blink, all thoughts momentarily derailed.

“I just want someone to want me,” Weiss says quietly. “Why is that so weird to you?”

Yang stares. Her mouth opens, but she can’t think of anything to say. There are too many walls in places where there shouldn’t be walls.

“I should…take you home,” she manages, eventually.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Weiss says, tone flat. “I’ll sleep at a hotel.”

She turns around and starts to walk toward the door, but Yang calls out to her. “Ruby’s worried about you! You should talk to her!”

Weiss slows briefly. “I waited for Ruby nearly a whole year, so she can wait until I’m ready to talk!”

With that, she passes out of earshot and into the night.

-


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Ruby is bleary-eyed and limp, head down on folded arms at the diner when Yang arrives. It’s 10am, but she doesn’t look like she’s slept at all. She’s come in a red sweatshirt and baggy joggers instead of her combat get up. Her long hair is thrown back in a messy ponytail.

Yang orders coffee for both of them immediately.

“What’s up, sis? What’s the emergency?”

Ruby lifts her head slowly and with visible agony. The red pleather booth creaks as she moves. Her fingers stick and catch against the formica table.

“Weiss hasn’t been home in over a week,” she says miserably, “and she won’t return my calls.”

Yang winces. “If it’s any consolation she won’t return mine either.”

“I just don’t know what I did wrong.” Ruby massages the bags under her eyes. “I thought she was staying with you. What happened?”

“Um... Well…” Yang thinks back on their strange conversation at the pub. “We had an argument and she left.”

“An argument about what?”

Yang turns guilty eyes away from Ruby’s beseeching expression. “Nothing. She was just bugging me about my dating life, or lack thereof I guess, and we started bickering.”

“Oh.” Ruby exhales. “And she didn’t tell you what was wrong?”

Yang sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. Her eye twitches, brow furrowing. It was this situation exactly that she didn’t want to find herself in, one where she has to lie to her sister in order to protect a teammate, but then, it’s Weiss who created this mess all by herself. It’s bullshit. Keeping Ruby in the dark will only hurt Ruby more and Yang can’t do that. She can trade barbs with Weiss and beat up bad guys all day, but she can’t hurt her baby sister.

“Yeah,” she admits at length. “She did.”

“Really?!” Ruby leans forward on her elbows, thin body suspended across half the table. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

“She swore me to secrecy.” Yang crosses her arms, suddenly irritated. “But she’s being an asshole, so I’m done keeping her secrets.”

“Go on,” Ruby prods, when Yang doesn’t immediately continue.

“It’s about Jaune.” Yang chews her lip for a second. “You honestly haven’t noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

“She’s upset that you’re dating him. She’s been in love with you for ages.”

Ruby blinks and falls back against the seat. “Oh.”

“…You don’t really seem that surprised.”

“Yeah. I mean, it makes sense…” Ruby looks off through the window, out at the old bank building across the street. “She kissed me once.”

Yang sits up straighter. “What? Really?”

Ruby shrugs. “I don’t remember it very well. I was badly injured, and she was trying to keep me awake until the transport arrived to take us back to the city. But that was before Blake, and…everything that happened after.”

“Before you ran away, you mean.”

Ruby looks up, startled by Yang’s sharp tone. “Yeah,” she says, quietly.

Yang frowns. “She was a wreck while you were gone. Did she ever tell you that?”

“Um,” Ruby rubs the back of her neck, eyes falling away, “I sort of guessed that might be the case.”

“It was really hard to watch. She thought you were dead,” Yang says, voice rising. “She thought she’d lost another teammate, her _partner,_ and when Jaune brought you back, you still wouldn’t talk to her, or even _look_ at her, for weeks.”

Ruby wilts, succumbing to her guilt like a flower to the frost. Her mouth moves in silent apology. Yang knows it’s taken her months and months of therapy to get to this point, because the Ruby that returned from the wilderness was skittish and easily spooked. She wasn’t comfortable in public spaces, she didn’t sleep through the night, and she didn’t do conversations about feelings.

Yang flexes her fingers and grits her teeth. She thinks of Blake’s simple cedar coffin and the funeral, thinks of Ruby, pale and bent in a black dress, knuckles white on the podium, silver eyes grey. She remembers Weiss’ cool hand landing on her metal arm, crawling up to find real skin, to squeeze, to reassure.

“She needed you,” Yang grits, rigidly still.

Ruby tenses. She reads the double meaning in Yang’s words, knows that she left more than Weiss behind. She reaches across the table and opens her hand, palm up, waiting for Yang to accept. Yang’s eyes sting. She stares at it balefully for a protracted beat. She doesn’t want to take it. She doesn’t want to let it go. She wants to hold her anger tight, wants to keep it close, wants to keep it burning. Without it there is only the hollow cold, the ashes in the hearth.

“Please,” Ruby murmurs.

Yang clenches her teeth, but her resolve breaks. She reaches out and clasps Ruby’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

“I’m so sorry,” Ruby says, mournful and slow. “I wasn’t myself.”

“I know.” Yang swallows thickly. “I know you wouldn’t do that unless…” Her throat tightens and she’s forced to pause.

Ruby squeezes her hand. “It won’t happen again.”

Yang shakes her head sharply. “It might.” Ruby starts to protest, but Yang cuts her off. “It might, sis, okay? I know that, and you know that. We’ll make a contingency plan, okay? We’ll talk to your therapist. We’ll figure it out.”

Ruby hesitates, expression doubtful, but she relents.

“Okay,” she says.

Yang nods and her gaze falls. She feels suddenly as exhausted as Ruby looks. She releases Ruby’s hand and flops back into the booth.

“So… What do we do about Weiss?” Ruby asks.

“I don’t know.” Yang shrugs. “Leave her alone I guess.”

“But-… Well. Shouldn’t we make sure she’s okay?”

“She’ll talk when she’s ready.’’

“I know, I’m just…” Ruby bites her lip and squirms, like she’s five years old wrestling with a secret. “I just miss her,” she admits. “The house feels really empty when she’s gone.”

Her grey eyes flash silver for a moment. A bit of life returns to them, highlighted by the anguish, but then they cloud again and she looks troubled. The hollows in her cheeks seem deeper as she turns to stare vacantly out the window. The crisp, autumn sunlight that slants against her face makes her sallow pallor all the more obvious.

“I do love her,” Ruby says quietly. “I’m just not sure I love her the way she loves me.”

Yang’s breathing stalls the tiniest bit and she experiences the overwhelming desire to dig her nails into her thighs. If ever there was a reason to extricate herself from this messy situation…

“You’re in love with Jaune,” Yang says, as if that answers the question.

Ruby nods absently. “I am.”

“So, be with him. Enjoy it.”

“Well…it’s not that simple.”

“But it is, right?”

“Huh?” Ruby glances up. “What do you mean?”

Yang curls her nails into palm, focuses on the sting. “I mean love is a choice, obviously. It’s not like you’ll never be attracted to anyone else again. You have to choose, and continue to choose. You stay because you want to protect the life you have with the person you love.”

Ruby’s eyes glisten. The silver in them has returned.

Yang swallows the sharp feeling in her throat. “It’s okay to be confused, sis.”

“I am confused!” Ruby wails, putting her head in her hands. “I am _so_ confused! I don’t know what to do!”

“Love is pretty much always confusing.” Yang smiles weakly. “Look enough of this conversation, okay? Let’s forget about Weiss for a little while and chow down on some greasy food. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Dunno.” Ruby shrugs one shoulder, eyes still covered. “Yesterday?”

“When yesterday?”

“Dunno.”

“Ugh, that’s bullshit, Rubes. You’ve gotta eat. You’re way too skinny.” Yang sticks an arm out and flags down a waitress. “I’m ordering you a big ass cheeseburger for breakfast.”

“And a milkshake?” Ruby pleads pitifully from between her fingers.

“Only if you agree to eat all your food,” Yang says.

Ruby nods in reluctant acceptance. “Deal.”

-

 

Yang spends the night at Ruby’s while Jaune is off working. They watch nature documentaries on the TV and get popcorn all over the couch just like they used to as kids, but it’s obvious something is off. Ruby isn’t quite engaged in the show they’re watching, and Yang isn’t really feeling like herself either.

She sleeps fitfully in Ruby’s bed, woken at intervals by her sister’s nightmares, her restless tossing and turning. If this is how it’s been every night she feels bad for Jaune. She wonders how he can stay so positive. She wonders where he finds the energy to attend so ardently to Ruby’s needs, how he manages to weather her dissociative moods, how he pulls her back into the light whenever she sinks into the darkness.

Ruby doesn’t settle into a peaceful sleep until the sun peeks over the horizon. Yang lies awake, watching the grey light brighten against the walls.

 _We’re not out of the woods yet_ , she thinks, and rises wearily to greet the day.

-

 

It takes several cups of coffee to get her dressed and across town.

Yang sits in the damp grass and pulls it up between her fingers. The seat of her pants is slowly soaking through, but she hardly cares. She listens to the gardeners trimming the hedges on the far side of the cemetery and lets her thoughts flow like leaves on a river, lazy and unhurried. The mist settles like dew in her hair, and she tries to remember those brief, happy moments stolen with her lover between battles. She tries forgive the universe for its entropy. For its apathy. It was a simple tactical miscalculation that took Blake’s life, right when they had finally reached the end, when there was so much space on the horizon, and the loss of that future will always ache.

Yang sighs wearily. A single white rose lies on the marble headstone in front of her.

“I feel like you would know what to do,” she says.

Tears blur her vision. She rocks forward and adjusts her knees so she’s crosslegged on the lawn. A crow flies overhead, alighting on the branch of a well-groomed pine tree nearby. Her own shadowy companion, a witness to her grief. She rests her chin in the palm of her metal hand and lets the sorrow run down her cheeks. Her chest hurts. Her heart hurts.

“I miss you so fucking much,” she croaks, voice breaking. “I wasn’t supposed to do this without you.”

She heaves a shuddering sigh and inhales through a stuffy nose. Her shoulders shake in her old sweatshirt. One of Blake’s. The jersey fabric is stretched at the seams, its black color gradually losing pigment from being washed so many times, but she can’t bring herself to give it away. Blake’s emblem is still embroidered on the sleeve.

“My head’s just all messed up right now,” Yang says quietly, stroking a finger along the stem of the rose. “I’m sorry I only come to you with my problems lately.”

The crow caws once and flaps its wings. She glances over at it. Beady black eyes stare back.

“Are you eavesdropping on me, Mom?” she asks, mouth scrunching.

There is no immediate answer. At length, the bird grows tired of their staring match and begins to groom its chest feathers. Perhaps it is only a bird. Some things really are that simple.

Yang sits and watches it for a while, letting her mind turn, sifting through the thoughts that rise to the surface. In time, she feels the fragments coalesce into something coherent.

“I’ve been treating it like an infidelity,” she says, speaking now directly to the crow, “but it kind of makes sense that it’s one of her best friends. I think Blake would find it ironic.”

The crow ceases its grooming and looks at her, and Yang feels oddly like she’s been heard. The burden on her shoulders lightens enough for her to find her feet. She stands tall amongst the headstones, peering off into the misty morning. The weather is turning, and there will be more Grimm at the walls soon. More work. More distractions. Other things to think about besides posthumous infidelities and teams politics.

“Thanks for listening,” Yang says to the curious crow, and strides off down the row toward the path.

-

 

Days stretch into weeks, and still Weiss doesn’t return.

 _“We haven’t seen her,”_ Nora says, when Yang calls.

Ruby gets on her scroll and talks to all their mutual friends, but no one has heard anything. Jaune and Yang combined only barely restrain her from filing a police report.

“She’s probably gone back to Atlas,” he says, and it’s the most reasonable theory Yang’s heard yet.

“You were gone for a year, Rubes, remember?” Yang pulls her sister into a hug. “She’ll be back when she’s ready. She won’t abandon you. That’s not her style.”

Ruby cries, but relents, and Jaune puts a pot of hot cocoa on the stove.

-

 

Winter arrives swiftly, bringing with it news of trouble from the haunted forests east of the wall. The war has ended, and Salem’s directed malevolence is finally gone, but the subsequent scattering of her Grimm army has proved less a victory than a tactical nightmare for each of the four kingdoms. Even Menagerie, once a tropical paradise, has had to raise a standing army to defend its shores.

Weaving slightly, Ruby slumps against the gate, blood running over her eye and down her cheek from a gash on her forehead. She’s favoring her left side. Her hand keeps straying to a spot on her right above her ribs, and Yang doesn’t have to ask to know they’re cracked. Ruby winces as she goes to tug the radio off her belt, still miraculously intact.

“Tower 5, this is Ruby, over.”

“ _Ruby this is Tower 5. Go ahead, over.”_

She wheezes a bit before she responds. “We’ve sustained injuries in the field. Requesting medical assistance, over.”

_“Roger. Medical is on their way. Tower 5 out.”_

Her job done, Ruby slowly and carefully clips the radio back onto her belt. It’s dark and snowing, and the dry north winds are bone-chilling. Black silhouettes of circling nevermores stand out against a hazy, light-stained sky. Their presence is ominous. The kingdom is ill at east and recruiting huntsmen from every continent to help defend its borders.

Strength spent, Yang collapses beside her sister, heels skidding in the snow. Her heavy railgun tumbles haphazardly from her hands. Pain throbs in her fingers, lancing up her into her arms. She tries to make a fist to no avail. Her hand is broken and her prosthetic started sparking an hour ago. It’ll be a hazard unless it’s fixed. There is also the matter of her hydraulic boots, their yellow armor stained brown by a mixture of ash and blood. Fluid leaks steadily from a crack on the right ankle. It’ll have to be re-soldered.

Her weary assessment is interrupted by a siren overhead, wailing out from the ramparts. The gate latch shudders and clicks, and the heavy steel door rolls back. Ruby and Yang scramble up as a team of four steps through, all older, all men. Their attire is tactical and military in style, with parkas made of snow camo and fur. They cut a striking contrast to Ruby in her shredded black dress and cloak. Beside her, in torn kevlar pants, Yang looks no less bedraggled.

“Shift change?” the shortest and scruffiest of the men asks.

“Please,” Yang rasps.

His accent is quaint. Yang wonders briefly where he’s from.

Without further ado, the man dons a pair of night vision goggles and begins to adjust them. His team follows suit. Field ready battle rifles protrude over their shoulders.

“Heard it’s treacherous out there tonight,” he says. “Glad you two made it back safe.”

“Thanks,” Ruby says raggedly. “Please be careful.”

With that, she stumbles inside, eager to be out of the cold. Yang is hot on her heels, hoisting her heavy gun under her arm like a bundle of firewood. A pair of guards rolls the gate shut behind them, and the fortified locks reverberate in the empty space.

“Commander Fortinbras is waiting for you upstairs,” one of them says, and buzzes them into the elevator.

A pair of medical officers greet them first thing as they emerge into the command station. The large room is semi-dark and buzzing with activity. Operators in black headsets sit huddled over radar stations and holoscreens. Machinery beeps and hums. Ruby lies on her cot and debriefs the commander while they bandage her ribs. A dark, dinner plate sized bruise mars her abdomen. Yang stares at it while one of the doctors examines her muscles. An engineer has detached her bionic arm and is fiddling with it at a desk not far away. She always feels a little naked without it.

“We were ambushed,” Ruby explains, going on to detail the hoard of beowolves and geists that assaulted them among the trees.

Yang winces as they hook an IV into her arm. It’s only simple fluids to combat dehydration, but she still hates needles.

“I’ll have one of my petty officers transport you home,” Commander Fortinbras says, a stalwart, stocky woman with wide shoulders and hips. “You will receive your compensation, plus a medical stipend, by the end of the week.”

“Thank you,” Yang murmurs, as Ruby winces in pain.

They put her wrist in a stint, bandage her hand, and ply her with painkillers and aura supplements. The grey light of dawn is creeping in through the tower windows by the time they’re fit to head out. Ruby sleeps in Yang’s lap in the back of the army jeep. Yang dozes against the window.

Jaune is waiting for them in the living room when they stagger through the front door of Ruby’s townhouse. He throws off his blankets and jumps up from the couch, blonde hair sticking out like straw.

“Thank god,” he groans, kissing Ruby on the temple. “I was worried when you were late coming back.”

Silently, she wraps her arms around his waist and tips her forehead against his chest. Her eyes close, lids bruised and purple, and they sigh together in unison. Yang shifts awkwardly, deciding to head for the stairs.

“I’m gonna crash in Weiss’ bed for a while,” she says.

“Um,” Jaune lifts his head, eyes going wide. “Weiss is here, actually.”

Yang freezes. “What?”

“Weiss?” Ruby perks up. “Did you say Weiss is here?”

“Yeah,” Jaune nods and smiles, albeit tentatively. “She got back last night.”

She’s out of his arms and up the stairs in a flash of rose petals. Yang stares after her, still frozen.

“You okay?” Jaune asks, tone light. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Yang’s lips part. Her breath rattles.

“I think I’ll just sleep down here,” she says, and makes her way to the couch where Jaune’s blanket and pillow lie forgotten.

-

 

She slips out as soon as he goes upstairs, and takes a rideshare home, still looking more or less like she just went three rounds with a hoard of grimm. It draws a raised eyebrow from the driver as he helps her load the railgun into the trunk of his car, but he doesn’t say anything about it. It’s only eight in the morning and Yang is grateful.

Getting up the stairs to her apartment proves much more difficult than she had anticipated. She’s excruciatingly sore and a little dizzy from the pain meds. Her gun feels like a ton of lead on her back. By the time she staggers through the door she’s so tired she could puke. The gun thuds against the old floorboards along with Ember Celica and her armored boots. She rips her jacket and shirt off with her prosthetic hand and leaves them in a heap as she makes her way to the kitchen. With just the one working arm, she has to brace her sports drink between her knees to crack it open.

“Fuck,” she gasps, as she collapses into her bed.

She drinks down most of the bottle, fumbles to twist the cap back on, and lets it drop to the floor. Her mind drifts into a black mist. She’ll sleep for days.

It feels like she’s been out for only a minute, however, when she hears a steady knocking at the front door. She turns over in her bed and tries to block it out, but it comes again, and again. The pain has returned in her broken hand, and it nags at her. She’s exhausted, and angry. The black mist recedes.

“I know you’re in there!” comes a muffled voice.

Yang growls and struggles upright, intending to answer, but the lock is already unlatching itself, and the door opens just a moment later. Weiss steps through in blue leggings, snow boots, and a puffy white coat. Her hair is sleep-ruffled, and she hasn’t applied a single ounce of makeup. She looks stunning. Sharp. Beautiful.

Yang reels.

“What the hell?” she snaps. “Did you copy my key without my permission?”

Weiss shuts the door behind her and stands in the middle of the apartment staring. Her skin is even paler than it was before, evidence of the north.

“No,” she replies, eyes narrowed. “I used glyphs.”

Yang gawks at her. “Glyphs?”

“It’s not even that hard with old locks like these,” she says dismissively, eyeing Yang’s door. “You just have to put pressure on the right pins and turn until it clicks.”

She moves into the apartment, past the curtains and the piles of weaponry and clothing, coming to a stop at Yang’s bedside. Her gaze is critical and assessing.

“You look awful,” she says. “It was idiotic going out there with just the two of you.”

“Where the fuck have you been?” Yang retorts.  

Weiss stiffens. “Atlas.”

“You should’ve told us where you were going. Ruby’s been a mess.”

“My, how the tables have turned,” Weiss says acidly, and gasps in shock when Yang’s bionic hand shoots out and seizes the collar of her coat.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Yang spits, dragging her down to eye level. “Was this just some petty revenge stunt?”

The air around Weiss turns frosty, steaming against Yang’s fiery skin. Her blue eyes are furious and bright. Her voice shakes with measured rage as she responds.

“Why is Ruby the only one who gets to be broken?” she asks, gripping the shoulders of Yang’s blood-stained thermal. “Or, here’s the better question. Why didn’t you come for me if you knew where I was?”

Yang bristles. “I didn’t know where you were.”

“Yes, you did.” Weiss knocks their foreheads together. “You knew I was with my sister. You have her address in your scroll.”

Yang pauses as she realizes that she _had_ known. She had never confirmed it, but she had accepted, on some level, that Weiss had gone north. Jaune’s suggestion had jogged her memory, had reminded her of Winter, and she hadn’t really been terribly concerned about Weiss’ whereabouts after that.

“I thought you wanted to be left alone,” Yang says slowly.

Weiss searches her eyes. “Did you? Or did you want me out of the way for a while so you could sort out your survivor’s guilt?”

Yang swallows around the knot in her throat. Weiss is so close and so deadly, and Yang is flushed with anger. She can see her hair glowing from the corner of her eye, can feel the heat rising off her body, and for all that she burns Weiss only grows colder, only grows sharper.

“We’re all selfish sometimes,” Weiss says. “Even you. But you’d be better off admitting it instead of trying to take some sort of moral high ground.”

Yang tries to shove her away, but Weiss holds fast, and it’s a quandry unlike anything Yang has ever experienced, because she’s afraid to give in her to impulses, she’s afraid of what she might do, but Weiss won’t let go. She’s too strong to resist. Too close, too tempting, too right.

“Are you still in love with my sister?” Yang coaks.

Weiss arches a brow. “Are you still in love with Blake?”

“Yes,” Yang says helplessly. “Always.”

Weiss smiles, and it’s small, perhaps a little bit sad as well, but it’s filled with understanding.

“I’ll never make you choose,” she murmurs.

Then she leans in, sealing the gap between them.

Yang’s eyes flutter closed, absorbing the impact, the shockwave. Weiss’ lips are soft and cold, and they sizzle slightly against Yang’s mouth as their semblances clash. Yang inhales sharply. She feels a ball of electricity travel from her head to her toes, raising goosebumps all along the way, and she whimpers into the kiss. It’s an accident, of course, to let her desperation show so plainly, but it does something exciting to Weiss, who exhales unsteadily against her mouth and knots her fingers into Yang’s hair. Her body trembles with tightly coiled energy. She kisses Yang again, longer, deeper, teasing a cool tongue across the seam of her lips until Yang opens wider to let her in.

It’s startling how good Weiss tastes. How good Weiss feels.

There’s a furtive dagger of guilt at the thought, but Yang dismisses it outright, tossing it into the corner of her mind for later. It’s been too long. She needs this too much. She releases her grip on Weiss’ collar and moves her metal hand to the nape of Weiss’ neck. Weiss shivers into the contact. Yang tugs her closer and she stumbles forward into Yang’s space. Her knees land splayed on the mattress astride Yang’s thighs. She braces her weight with two hands against Yang’s chest.

“O-okay,” she stutters, breathing heavily. “We should… We should regroup.”

Yang wraps an arm around her waist and kisses along her jaw. “I thought you wanted this.”

“I do, but-” Weiss cries out as Yang’s teeth close around her earlobe, clicking against a diamond stud.

Her hips jerk forward and bump against Yang’s stomach. Her back arches. Her breath escapes in hot, open-mouthed pants.

“You should take off that coat,” Yang murmurs.

Weiss’ hands fumble to comply. The zipper rattles as it comes undone. There’s a swish of fabric sliding against skin, and then the gentle rustling of the garment settling on the floor. Yang leans away to look and finds Weiss blinking back at her in a silky white camisole, braless and a bit sheepish.

“Did you come over in your pajamas?” Yang asks, surprised.

Weiss’ cheeks tint. “Well, yes, but in my defense I was kind of in a hurry.”

Yang smirks. She reaches out to splay her metal hand over Weiss’ sternum and watches the effect it has, the way Weiss’ chest begins to heave, the way the color in her cheeks drips further south. Yang strokes a finger along the underside of her chin, lifting it gently, then places an open mouthed kiss against her throat. Weiss’ moan vibrates against her lips, teeth, and tongue.

“Sensitive spot?” Yang asks, hovering close.

“Apparently,” Weiss murmurs, eyes closed.

Her voice is syrupy, and a whole octave deeper. It excites Yang on a level she didn’t think possible, not least of all because Blake’s voice always went higher, and she has nothing else to compare it to. There was only Blake. And now there’s Weiss.

Weiss swallows thickly and leans away a bit, enough to signal her intention to slow down. Yang tries to follow her, but a hand presses firmly against her shoulder.

“Wait,” Weiss says, lashes fluttering.

Yang grumbles in protest and flops back against the bed. Weiss smiles at her knowingly, like a parent smiles at a pouting child. She settles her weight comfortably on Yang’s thighs and lets her gaze trace Yang’s body, lingering here and there, circling to return to certain spots before flitting away again.

“See something you like?” Yang purrs, winking.

She feels a bit like her old self.

“What happened to your hand?” Weiss asks instead, reaching down to lift her bandaged left arm.

Pain lances up the limb into her shoulder and Yang winces, hissing through her teeth. Weiss’ eyes widen.

“It’s broken,” Yang admits.

“Did they send you home with painkillers?”

“Yeah, and aura supplements.”

Weiss glances over her shoulder. “Where are they?”

“In my jacket pocket.”

“You mean the one on the ground by the door?” Weiss asks, clambering to her feet.

“Yeah.”

Weiss follows Yang’s trail of clothes until she finds the aforementioned jacket. Then there’s a bit of rustling, the rattling of pills in a bottle. Yang rolls her head to the left and watches Weiss make her way into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opens, and she can just see the top of a silver head over the countertop.

“Holy shit, you have like, no food,” Weiss exclaims, rooting around for something. “How do you feed yourself, woman?”

Yang shrugs. “I haven’t been here much. Everything I buy just goes bad.”

The door closes and Weiss tromps back into view holding a can of tea. She drops down onto the mattress next to Yang and shakes some pills into her palm. She hands them over to Yang, who pops them into her mouth without question. Weiss cracks the can of tea and holds it out expectantly.

“You should probably sit up to drink this,” she says. “Unless you want to spill it all over your face.”

Yang smirks. “I’d really rather have _you_ all over my face.”

Weiss gives her a deadpan look. “Yeah, no. I think we should wait on that.” She gestures at Yang’s bandages. “At least until you’ve healed up enough to use both hands.”

“Seriously? That could be days!” Yang rolls her eyes. “Besides, I don’t need two hands.”

“That’s probably true, but you do need some sleep,” blue eyes pass over Yang’s torn, blood-crusted shirt, “and a shower.” She shakes the can of tea expectantly. “Up.”

Yang struggles upright with only a little bit of groaning, and takes the can. She drinks from it deeply while Weiss watches. When she’s done, she leans in and steals a kiss from Weiss, who expels a muffled protest.

“Come shower with me,” Yang says against her lips.

Weiss blushes. “Absolutely not.”

“Come on, please? I’ll need some help anyway, seeing as I only have one hand.”

She kisses Weiss again, who returns the kiss enthusiastically, and it’s several long, breathless minutes before the subject of showering arises again.

“Please,” Yang whispers, meeting her eyes.

Weiss chews her lip until it’s red. Her expression is conflicted, but at last she relents, seeming as if she’s expelled something heavy in doing so.

“Fine, but we’re wrapping that hand in plastic first.”

Yang grins. “Seems like a good idea to me.”

“And no funny business,” Weiss adds sternly. “You need to get clean and get in bed. In that order. The aura supplements won’t work unless you sleep.”

“Oh, but surely you’ll help me wash my back,” Yang says coyly, and Weiss’ blush deepens.

“We can- um.” She clears her throat. “We can negotiate on that.”

Sensing victory, Yang gingerly stands up, wobbling a bit on sore, shaky legs, and shambles off in the direction of the kitchen. Weiss hops to her feet and follows after her. She clucks her tongue as she wraps an arm around Yang’s waist to steady her.

“Jeez, you can barely walk,” she gripes.

“I look forward to seeing you naked,” comes Yang’s cheeky, defiant reply, and she only laughs with delight when Weiss smacks her sharply on the ass.

-


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3.2.19  
> whew is it already march? february really flew by. anyway, here's a long overdue chapter 3. i've decided to add at least one more after this wrap things up so we're not quite done yet.  
> ~enjoy!

3.

Weiss helps Yang wrap her hair up in a towel.

“Better?” she asks, when Yang straightens up. 

“Yeah,” Yang rasps. “Thanks.”

She clears her throat. Her voice sounds like metal being dragged over jagged rock, and she’s swaying on her feet. The shower had been a painful, uncomfortable affair, due in no small part to the lacerations all over her body, which were not pleasant to expose to hot water. Weiss’ presence had been more a necessity than a luxury. 

Weiss steadies her with a hand on her ribs and circles around to her back. Gentle fingers trace a line of black ink down from the top her shoulder and in toward her spine, circling over the dragon’s coils. A shallow gash bisects her right shoulder blade, and it still smarts rather badly from the soap. Weiss had insisted on washing it out thoroughly. Her touch hovers there. 

“I just really think this needs stitches,” she says. 

Yang shakes her head wearily. “It’ll mess up my tattoo.” 

“Your tattoo’s already messed up.” 

“Yeah, but scars are cool,” Yang replies. “Crooked tattoos are not.” 

Weiss relents with a sigh. Her hand falls away and she begins to pick up her pajamas from the bathroom floor. Yang, by contrast, has nothing to retrieve. Weiss had cut Yang’s shirt and bra off with a pair of scissors and thrown them in the trash. Yang’s kevlar pants were only barely salvaged from a similar fate amid some speculation from Weiss that she’d heard of a decent tailor in the city.

“And if he can’t fix combat gear,” Weiss had said, “I’ll just mail them to Atlas. It would be a shame to throw out such an expensive, custom made garment.” 

Yang has never heard anyone else beside Weiss and tailors refer to an article of clothing as a garment, but she doesn’t even mind Weiss’ aristocratic quirks anymore. In fact, she finds them kind of endearing. 

Wrapped in towels and eager to be off her aching feet, Yang makes her way out of the cramped bathroom and shuffles across the apartment to her makeshift bedroom behind the curtain. Bright, snow-whitened light streams in from the windows, searing her tired eyes. The worst of the storm has passed and the cloud cover has thinned to a sheer platinum. Tiny flakes shimmer like glitter in the air, flickering past her round, attic window. Yang considers pulling the drapes, but decides it would be too much effort. Instead, she flops down face first onto her bed.

“Aren’t you gonna get dressed?” comes Weiss’ voice behind her. 

Yang mumbles something unintelligible into her pillow. There’s a gentle tug at her broken arm and the sound of fingers pulling away plastic. Fresh air hits her skin, drying the condensation gathered on her bandages. She feels the duvet being pulled out from under her, then the whisper of cold sheets over her. The blanket follows. 

Slowly, Yang turns her head to one side, freeing up her mouth to speak. “Are you tucking me in?” 

“Um…” Weiss pauses, then laughs once and says, “Apparently I am.” 

“Stay,” Yang mumbles, eyes too heavy to remain open. “Don’t go yet.” 

“Well, I would, but I’m not exactly tired,” Weiss says. “And anyway, you need groceries. I was thinking of running out to the store.” 

“Okay.” Yang sighs. “Will you get me some chocolate ice cream? I’m out of ration points.” 

“Because you spend them all on those sugary sports drinks.” 

“Pleeeease-“

“Okay! Okay. Yes. I will get you chocolate ice cream.” 

Yang peeks an eye open and lifts the corner of her mouth. “Thank you.” 

Weiss rolls her eyes with the kind of exasperation she usually reserves only for Ruby. “You’re welcome.”

“Stay until I fall asleep?” Yang asks. 

“Sure,” Weiss says, and settles in, sitting daintily against Yang’s blanket covered hip. “But only because you’re cute when you’re pathetic.” 

“You think I’m cute all the time,” Yang mutters. 

Weiss doesn’t have the heart to disagree. 

-

 

Yang sleeps in fits and spells, spiralling in and out of strange, lurid dreams. She wakes briefly when Weiss returns with the groceries, and again when she leaves, taking care to shut the door quietly behind her. Yang dreams of snow that falls without ceasing, covering the world in a clean, cold blanket, burying her up to her chin, up to her eyes, over her head, until she’s swimming to stay abreast of a rising tide of white. 

Later that afternoon she gets up to use the bathroom and finds that Weiss has left a note on the bedside table next to a glass of water and another dose of medication. 

_ >Spending the day with Ruby. Call if you need anything. Xo _

Yang drops the note and swallows the pills. Her apartment is freezing and the shadows on her walls are long. Outside her window the snow has started up again, falling like glitter from patchy clouds through rays of orange light. The colors in the sky swirl together like a mixed tray of paints; pinks and golds and purples and blues. Half asleep, half addled from the painkillers, Yang stands in awe of the world again, of the things that had, for so long, been cast in a palette of greys. She thinks of the fold out map she used to keep with Blake, of all the marks they made in pen by lantern light, whispering late at night about all the places they wanted to see together after the war. Back then she was a girl who loved adventure. 

“What happened to you?” she mutters aloud. 

Her forehead tips against the cold glass and she sighs, running metal fingertips through the condensation on the window. Would Weiss be up for a trip to see the floating arches in Vacuo? Yang tries to imagine her amid the red-banded terrain of the high desert in a pristine dress and designer boots, wearing sunglasses as large as her face, looking far too perfectly coiffed for sweltering temperatures. 

“Fuck,” Yang mumbles, banishing the thought. 

She grabs a blanket from the bed, drapes it around her naked body, and shuffles to the bathroom, but when her head hits the pillow again she dreams of Weiss alight in the fires of the desert sunset, wind whipping the hem of her white sundress, bare feet planted in the sand. 

“Come on. We’re going to be late,” she says, extending a hand, and Yang doesn’t question it. 

She laces their fingers together and lets the fire bathe them both. 

-

 

It’s pitch dark when Yang wakes again, jostled from unconsciousness by sudden movement in the bed. 

“Scoot over, blanket hog,” Weiss says as she cuddles up behind Yang. 

Her body is chilled from outside and her feet feel like twin blocks of ice against Yang’s calves. 

“Shit!” Yang yelps, wriggling away from her. “Your feet are fucking cold!” 

Weiss snorts a laugh. “Sorry. I got snow in my boots and my socks are soaked. I had to take them off.” 

‘Mmph,” Yang grumbles, and rolls over onto her back. “How was your day with Ruby?” 

“Fine. She was sort of clingy, but I guess she just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t vanish again. I understand the sentiment.” 

“Hm, yeah. Well, clingy is better than distant.” 

“Sure,” Weiss mutters. “I’m not complaining.” 

Yang licks her lips, tasting dry, chapped skin. “So...are you moved back into the townhouse for good?” 

Weiss takes a second to answer. “I guess so.” 

“What about Jaune?” 

“I’ll learn to live with him. Besides, there’s always plenty of vodka around if he’s getting on my nerves.” 

“True.” Yang grunts and stretches slowly. “By the way, what time is it?”

She’s stiff all over and so tired she can barely peel her eyes open. Weiss curls into her side, pressing the tip of her frigid nose into Yang’s bicep. A curious hand probes under the covers until it encounters her waist and slides overs her abdomen, hooking securely under her ribs on the opposite side. 

“Almost eight.’

“Jeez, are you serious?” Yang struggles to sit up and the covers fall away from her chest. “Whoa, wait, why am I naked?” 

Weiss yawns and blinks up at her through sleepy blue eyes. “You don’t remember?” 

Yang stares at her, at Weiss cocooned in an oversized orange fleece stolen from her closet, with her possessive arm and her silky white hair brushing Yang’s skin. Weiss’ cheeks glow redder the longer Yang stares, but she doesn’t break the silence. She keeps her gaze fixed intently on Yang’s face. 

“Go ahead and look,” Yang says, smirking. “I know you want to.” 

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Weiss replies, though her tone is a bit strangled. 

“Never this close, though, right?” 

Weiss licks her lips. “So?” 

“It’s okay.” Yang pushes her chest out a little. “Touch them. I don’t mind.” 

Weiss surprises her then. She shifts forward and presses her face fully into the soft valley between Yang’s breasts. 

“Oh, whoa, hello,” Yang says, twitching a bit in surprise. 

Weiss breathes in deeply and burrows closer, rubbing eager patterns with the tip of her nose. Her lips pucker against Yang’s skin. Her right hand clutches at Yang’s side, teasing higher, fingers climbing Yang’s ribs like rungs on a ladder. 

Yang inhales sharply as Weiss finally reaches the bottom curve of her left breast, cupping gently, slowly, studying the weight of it, its supple malleability. In mere seconds, the atmosphere has veered sharply away from innocent exploration.

“I didn’t take you for a boob girl,” Yang says tightly, straining to control her tone. 

The fingers of her bionic hand find the back of Weiss’ head and knot in her hair. The orange fleece tickles her skin. Weiss palms Yang’s breast fully then, squeezing with splayed fingers. She lifts her head and takes the other nipple into her mouth. 

“Fuck,” Yang rasps. 

Her head hits the pillow as she arches into Weiss’ mouth. 

“I don’t know if I’m a boob girl or not,” Weiss says against Yang’s skin, speaking quickly and breathlessly in between sweeps of her tongue, “but I do like yours.” 

“First time?” Yang teases. 

Weiss huffs. “No. I took care of that while I was in Atlas, thank god.” 

“What?” Yang’s breath hitches as Weiss returns to sucking. “I didn’t… fuck… I didn’t know you were-“

“Not anymore,” Weiss mutters, and palms Yang firmly with both hands. 

“Ungh!” Yang’s back lifts off the mattress. “Why?” 

“I don’t know.” Weiss licks, flat-tongued, from bottom to top over Yang’s breast, finishing with a wet kiss against her chest. “Why not?” 

“You could’ve waited for me to-“

“ _ No _ ,” Weiss cuts her off with flashing eyes, “I couldn’t.” 

Yang exhales. She feels an aching in her legs, a burning in her back, a throbbing in her broken arm. Her battered body is protesting the exertion, but she grits her teeth against it, ignoring it as best she can. She doesn’t want to wait anymore. 

“Who’d you do it with?” Yang asks, between breaths, and is surprised to find that she feels only a twinge of jealousy. 

Weiss came back to  _ her, _ after all. 

“None of your business,” Weiss retorts, lifting her mouth from Yang’s body just long enough to utter the words. 

“You hired someone, didn’t you- ah!” Yang twists away from the sharp nip of teeth, a warning shot over the bow. 

“Shut up,” Weiss hisses, blue eyes narrowing. 

“Or what?” Yang retorts breathlessly. 

“Or I’ll make you.”

Yang’s body erupts in goosebumps.“I really, really want you to make me.” 

The temperature in the room climbs at least ten degrees. Yang licks her lips in invitation and Weiss kisses her hard. Her fingers drag a tantalizing trail down Yang’s body, between her breasts, across her abdomen, over her hip bones. She squeezes everywhere she goes, kneading and grasping, sliding her palms back up to Yang’s breasts to repeat the process all over again. Only when Yang finally goads her on does she pull the covers aside and cup a hand between Yang’s legs. Her fingers waver on the edge of commitment for a breathless moment, then finally, mercifully, sink in. 

“You’re so wet!” Weiss exclaims, jaw falling slack.

Yang only pants and closes her eyes. She hasn’t been touched like this in years, and far from being pleasurable, the feeling of it is nearly overwhelming. Electric sensation rolls through her in waves, raising goosebumps on her skin. Her legs shake. Her heart pounds in her ears. Hot tears pool behind her eyelids and cling to her lashes. Weiss teases a finger north along her slit and Yang twitches, whimpering into Weiss’ hair. 

“You okay?” Weiss murmurs against her ear.

Yang swallows thickly. Her battered body aches and trembles. Weiss’ finger rests motionless against her clit, waiting for direction, and it could weigh a 1000 pounds for all it represents: every lonely night, every empty bed, every blank space where another body should be. All of that anguish now on the verge of being soothed. A flood poised to end a drought. 

“If you’re not ready-“ 

“I am.” Yang reaches for Weiss’ wrist and holds her in place. “Please, just…” 

Weiss’ glazed expression clears as sympathy replaces lust. “Yang-“ 

“Just don’t stop, okay? Even if I do something stupid like cry.” 

“If you’re sure,” Weiss says, brows knitting. 

“As sure as I’ll ever be,” Yang admits, and steels herself for the truth. “I need you to get me past this, Weiss.” 

Soft lips kiss her ear, her temple, her cheek. “Okay. Stop me if you change your mind.” 

Weiss moves her finger then, just slightly, just softly, testing Yang’s resolve, and is rewarded with a reedy, whimpering sound that peels off the back of Yang’s throat like young cedar bark. A second finger joins the first, and they move together like a swimmer’s feet, kicking steadily, sweeping out and drawing back together. Yang shakes continuously. It’s hard to focus on anything that isn’t the mounting hunger. Her thoughts are frenzied. Her eyes sting. 

“You feel incredible,” Weiss whispers reverently, like a priestess before an altar, and she kisses Yang in earnest. 

Her mouth is unceasing, her touch relentless. She sucks up Yang’s gasps like air, like she will suffocate if she doesn’t breathe her in. She pushes through when Yang tries to crawl away from her, fleeing the intensity. She holds fast when Yang begins to thrash. She uses her palm to keep the pressure steady and her middle finger to slip inside, and she keeps her lips firm against Yang’s throat as lilac eyes gaze unseeing into the dark, pupils blown and streaming, damp lashes fluttering. 

So close. 

So close, so close, so close. 

Yang comes, finally, like something is being wrenched from her. She moans out her relief against Weiss’ shoulder, and her entire body seizes before freezing stiff in a violent sort of rigor mortis, the grip of a little death. A sweet afterlife arrives on its heels. She sighs as the ecstasy flows over her. Her joints unlock and her muscles melt.

“Are you okay?” Weiss whispers, panting lightly.

Yang can give no immediate reply except except a shiver with her aftershocks. She’s unable to muster an answer. At length, she opens her eyes again and blinks into the silence with a bewildered expression on her face. Her skin is faintly damp and hot. Weiss’ watching eyes seem crystal bright, even in the dark. 

“I feel like curling into a ball,” Yang says, breathless. 

Weiss watches her warily. “I’m not sure how to take that.” 

“I’ve never been with anyone else.” 

“I know.” 

“I feel…” Yang squeezes her eyes shut. Tears stream down her temples and into her hair. “I feel so guilty,” she finishes in a whisper. 

Weiss tugs the sleeve of the fleece over her hand and dabs at Yang’s tears. She seems close to tears herself, but she holds herself steady. Her composure is unflinching. 

“You feel bad for feeling good?” Weiss asks, and Yang nods wretchedly. “That’s survivor’s guilt, hun.” 

“I know.” 

“She wouldn’t want you to suffer.” 

“I know.” 

“It’s okay to move on.” 

“I’m  _ terrified _ to move on.” Yang covers her face with both hands, wincing as the bandaged one throbs sharply. “I don’t want to get over her. Without her there’s just…nothing.”

“It’s a blank slate,” Weiss says softly, brushing back her hair. “You get to start over. You can fill it with new things.” 

“I don’t  _ want _ new things.” 

“I know.” Weiss kisses her cheek. “But you’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.” 

Yang stills then, hands falling away, peering at Weiss’ face as the pain of realization lances through her. It burns away the clouds of doubt, it consumes the cobwebs of uncertainty, and when the blaze has swept her completely from head to toe, she’s left with nothing but scorched earth and Weiss, who is still there in the ashes, ready to rebuild. 

“You’re right,” Yang whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Weiss smiles ruefully and traces her fingers along Yang’s stomach. “Thanks, but it’s really not about being right or wrong. It’s just about finding a way to keep going. Especially when you don’t want to.” 

Yang reaches up and runs metal fingers through Weiss’ hair. Silver moonlight glows against the yellow digits and black joints, washing out the color until her hand looks almost skeletal, almost spectral. Against it, Weiss’ pale, tousled hair is angel bright. 

“Thank you,” Yang says. 

Weiss turns her head and kisses the center of her palm. “You’re welcome.” 

Yang sits up a bit and groans as the aches resurge. Weiss scoots away from her, pulling her knees up to her chest. The orange fleece, a size too large even on Yang, seems to engulf Weiss completely, and the sight of her drowning in borrowed clothes stirs long subverted impulses. 

“If you give me just a minute to recover I can repay the favor,” Yang says, brushing back her wild hair. 

Weiss’ expression scrunches. “We don’t have to do that tonight. I can tell you’re exhausted.” 

Yang rolls her eyes. “I can handle a little sex.” 

Weiss just squints. “You’re clearly in pain.” 

“What’s a little pain? I’m used to pain. Besides, I’ve got pain pills, don’t I?”

“Fine. Yes. But-” she gestures at Yang’s broken arm. “Two hands, remember?” 

“I don’t need two hands. I have a mouth.” Yang licks her lips and musters a tired grin. 

Weiss gives her a deadpan look. “Oh, be still my fluttering heart.” 

“That’s more like it.” Yang laughs and slides down the bed a bit, positioning herself with her head flat on the mattress. “Hop up, princess.” 

Weiss blanches. “Excuse me?” 

Yang arches a brow. “Okay, um. Saddle up? Have a seat?” 

“I know what it means!” Weiss squawks, and buries her face in her knees. “Yang, I don’t think I can do that.” Her muffled voice is mortified. 

Yang frowns and props herself up on her forearms. “Wait, why not?”

Weiss heaves a long suffering sigh and peeks over her legs. Her face is pale and panicked. There’s an anxious fluttering in her breath and it softens Yang’s heart. 

“Hey,” she says gently, “it’s okay to be nervous.” 

“I’m sorry,” Weiss says stiffly. “It’s just so...” she waves a hand. 

“Intimate?” Yang guesses. 

Weiss groans and buries her face in her knees again. “Embarrassing,” she mutters. 

“Ah.” Weiss doesn’t respond so Yang barrels on. “Look, I know it seems embarrassing, but it feels amazing. Seriously. It’s one of my favorite positions.” 

“Oh, well, good for you,” Weiss snipes and shakes her head. “Sorry, just. We don’t need to force something to happen tonight. I don’t mind waiting a couple days.”

“If you really want to wait, we totally can. That’s fine. I respect that.” Yang lowers her tone to a suggestive murmur. “But don’t stop on my account, okay? I’m ready to go. You just say the word and I’ll do whatever you want.” 

Weiss’ cheeks tint. “I… I’m fine. Let’s just...” She bites her lip and swears softly. “I came over here to check on you, not…” 

Yang holds her gaze. “It’s okay to be a little selfish sometimes, isn’t that what you said earlier?”

“Not exactly,” Weiss replies drily. 

“Whatever. You know what I mean.” 

Weiss appears dubious at best, but she doesn’t protest. Yang can almost hear the gears turning in her head as she mulls it over, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, features as sharp as her focus. She’s as analytical as Blake ever was, probably a good deal more, and it occurs to Yang, suddenly, how much time Weiss must have already spent thinking about this, worrying about it, teasing apart every possible permutation of every possible situation. 

Yang is just about to back out, to concede that Weiss is right, that they should wait until she’s comfortable to take the next step, but then Weiss surprises her again. She sits up abruptly on her heels, hesitates for a moment with her eyes on Yang, and climbs off the bed. Yang pushes herself upright and watches Weiss pad away through the dark apartment. 

“Where are you going?” Yang asks.

“Just wait a minute,” Weiss says, as the refrigerator door opens. 

A bottle clinks against a metal shelf and Yang’s heart sinks. She listens to the cap snap as it twists off. She doesn’t own any liquor. Weiss must’ve bought some at the store. 

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” 

“I need a little liquid courage, okay? Not all of us are as comfortable with our bodies as you seem to be.” 

“It’s not like you’ve got anything to worry about,” Yang says.

“That’s not for you to decide,” Weiss snaps. 

Yang holds up her hands in defense. “Jeez, okay. Just stating the obvious.” 

Weiss makes no reply. She takes a couple long swallows and returns to the bed. The metal cap clicks back into place and the bottle thuds against the floor. Weiss straightens up and does a full body shiver, tilting her head from side to side, shaking out her joints. The air smells slightly of vodka. 

“Are you thinking you’ll need that later?” 

“Just in case,” Weiss says primly. 

Yang hears the rustle of pants unfastening and watches as pale legs emerge in the moonlight. Weiss won’t look at her. Her expression is all business, jaw set, brows furrowed. She climbs onto the bed and straightens up on her knees, taking a moment to collect herself. 

“Are you leaving the fleece on?” Yang asks gently. 

“It’s cold,” Weiss retorts, and sniffs. “If we do this, you aren’t allowed to laugh at me.” 

“Why would I laugh at you?” 

“Yang!” 

“Okay! Okay, sorry, I won’t laugh at you.” 

Weiss glowers and lowers her head. Silver light illuminates just half her face, half a glare, half a flicker of uncertainty. Yang takes pity on her. 

“Come here,” she says, extending her metal hand. 

Weiss eyes it suspiciously, but reaches out to take it, and Yang pulls her closer, tugging until their knees are touching. She runs her fingers through Weiss’ hair, brushing it over an ear, lingering along her cheek. Her thumb presses against Weiss’ bottom lip. She lets herself look, lets herself admire. Dark blue eyes peer back, intensity wavering as familiar insecurity creeps in. 

“Beautiful,” Yang murmurs, and kisses her. 

Weiss inhales softly through her nose. Their mouths move together at a languorous pace and it’s delightfully different than it was before. There’s no urgency, and no desperation, no feeling that their strange connection might dissolve without a hasty consummation. Yang is soft, and Weiss is softer. She kisses and retreats, changes the angle and reconnects. Over and over. Making her claim. When, at last, Weiss licks along the seam of her mouth, Yang admits her with a sigh, and their kiss grows deeper. Yang’s pulse begins to pound in her ears as Weiss’ tongue curls around hers. Weiss retreats and Yang chases, halted with teeth, and then, with lips that suck her into a warm mouth. 

Yang moans. Weiss finally breaks for air. 

“God,” she mutters, panting and warm. 

She looks shell shocked, with fluttering lashes and a heaving chest. Yang’s hand slides south down her spine and settles on her lower back where the fleece is bunched at the hem, just inches from bare skin. Weiss leans closer, titling their foreheads together. Her eyes remain lidded. Her breathing is quick. 

“You ready?” Yang asks. 

Weiss licks her lips and stares at Yang’s mouth. “I can’t wait for your other hand to heal.”

Yang’s heart flutters. “Soon.”

“Very soon, I hope,” Weiss whispers, and leans forward to press their lips together again. 

It’s wetter now, and latent with anticipation. Yang’s hand leaves the safety of the bunched hem and glides over Weiss’ bare backside. 

“Ah!” Weiss flinches, dettaching messily from Yang’s mouth. “Your hand is freezing!” 

“Sorry,” Yang huff laughs and flexes the metal digits. “It heats up when I’m using it a lot, but we’ve just been talking, so…”

Weiss shivers as Yang settles her hand on her thigh. “Let’s just get this over with. No more foreplay.” 

Yang laughs. “That’s the spirit.” 

“At least your mouth will be warm.” 

“Can’t argue with that logic.” 

Weiss blushes and frowns. “Show me what to do. Where to put my legs, and… wait, what do I do with my hands?”

“Whatever you want. There’s no rules.” Yang lies back on the bed and flips her long hair up over her head. “Here, straddle my chest.” 

She lays her arms at her side, ignoring the incessant throbbing in her injured hand as Weiss carefully, and awkwardly, complies with her request. Once settled, Weiss looks positively anxious. She holds her spine rigid and upright, hands curled into the front of her fleece. 

“Like this?” she asks. 

Yang smiles and kisses the inside of her thigh. “Yeah. Perfect. I’m just gonna…” She scoots down a bit, until her feet are hanging off the bed and her face is positioned directly under Weiss’ center. 

Weiss shivers a bit above her. Whether it’s a reaction of fear or arousal Yang can’t be sure, but a slim hand descends into her hair and knots there at the top of her crown. Yang exhales and Weiss shivers again. It’s too dark to see very much detail, but Yang allows herself a moment of study and reverence. Weiss looks different, and it’s strange. Even her guilt, so strong just a few minutes before, is fleeting now. She’s curious. She can smell Weiss, and she wants to get closer. She wants to feel more, taste more. She wants to know what Weiss sounds like, whether she’s a screamer, whether she’s a dirty talker. Yang grins at the thought. 

“Lower your body a little more,” she prompts, tugging gently on the top of Weiss’ left thigh. “I need you closer. Like, literally  _ sit _ on my face.”

“Oh my god,” Weiss mutters, and embarrassment drips from every syllable. “What if I suffocate you?”

“You won’t. Seriously, babe, just come here.”

Yang tugs again, this time with force, and Weiss’ legs splay wider, settling on her mouth with a little squeak.

“Fuck- wha-” she starts, but her protestations trail off into a moan as Yang pokes her tongue out and laps long and slow up the length of her slit. 

She tastes… 

Yang pauses to lick her lips, to consider it. Her nose brushes against coarse, trimmed hairs. Her lungs fill with a heady, musky scent. She breathes in deeply as Weiss squirms overhead. 

“Hold still,” Yang mumbles, kissing Weiss wetly, and the gasp that reaches her ears is confirmation enough that she’s been heard. 

She goes to work then. She starts slow with long, broad strokes, flat tongued and teasing, the sort that spread Weiss open and make her fingers pull at the roots of Yang’s hair. Only when Weiss begins to whimper and squeeze her thighs around Yang’s ears does she switch to a more earnest pace. She flicks and circles. She uses her lips to suck. She dips inside of Weiss just enough to feel the pull of her muscles, drawing her in deeper, and she hears a breathy exclamation from above. 

Weiss, it seems, is enjoying herself after all. 

Yang uses her one good hand and her elbow to pull Weiss down by the thighs, keeping her flush against Yang’s mouth each time she bucks up out of reach. Weiss bows forward. Her other hand lands against the mattress somewhere over Yang’s head. Her hips begin to move as she chases the pressure of Yang’s tongue, and soon she’s rocking against Yang’s mouth. 

“Oh fuck,” Weiss breathes, when she realizes she’s above to come. “Yang-” she starts to say, starts to whisper, like the beginning of a prayer, awed and confused, but she can’t finish. 

Yang feels the coming storm and cranes her neck, burrowing her tongue in as deep as she can go. Weiss tenses around her like wire pulled taught. Her muscles strain and quiver, and when Yang swirls her tongue Weiss convulses. 

She pitches forward onto her hands and knees, gasping for breath. Her mouth opens and a single, low-throated note escapes, unspooling into the dark like a thread of gold. Yang’s chest constricts so tight it feels like all her body throbs with the beating of her heart. She shifts and turns, rising on her left elbow. A curious tingling spreads throughout her body, familiar and light. She reaches to catch a flushed, shaking Weiss before she collapses against the bed. Thin arms wind around her stomach and she ignores the aching in the cuts and bruises that mar her body. She holds Weiss fast against her chest and falls back against the mattress. 

They lie like that in the dark together for several minutes, chests rising and falling in unison. 

“What did you think?” Yang asks at length, when she can no longer contain herself. 

Weiss stirs against her chest, still trembling slightly at intervals. “Well… It wasn’t what I expected.” 

“In a good way?” 

Yang hears a soft snort. “If you have to ask then you weren’t paying very close attention.” 

“On the contrary, madam. I paid very close attention. Extremely close, you might say.” 

Weiss huffs a laugh and kisses Yang’s sternum. “It was amazing.” 

“Amazing?” Yang grins. “Nice. Guess I’m not too rusty after all.” 

“I hear it’s like riding bike,” Weiss muses.

“My god, Weiss, where do you hear such lewd things?” 

“Shut up,” Weiss says, giggling. 

“You need to quit reading those magazines.”

Weiss just laughs outright and lifts herself up, sitting back on Yang’s thighs. Her hair falls down around her face, mussed and lovely, and Yang finds herself staring as she peels off the borrowed fleece. A slender torso emerges clad in a simple cardigan and tank top. 

“I should probably go clean up,” she says, half to herself, “but it’s so cold.” 

Yang agrees with a simple nod, though in truth she’s still burning up. She watches, nonetheless, as Weiss flops over onto her back and wiggles under the covers, shivering as she pulls the blanket up to cover them both. 

A comfortable silence settles over them again. Weiss squirms around, trying to get warm while Yang enjoys the company of someone beside her again. Her bed has felt too big for too long. 

“By the way,” Yang says, once her drowsy mind has begun to wander, “I can’t believe you hired someone to teach you how to have sex.”

Weiss groans. “Are you still stuck on this?” 

“Yeah, I’m stuck on this,” Yang says, rolling gingerly onto her side. “Are you kidding me? It’s sort of hilarious. Like, any normal person would just fumble their way through it and deal with the embarrassment, but not you. No way. You went out and hired a sexy personal trainer.” 

Weiss rolls her eyes. “This is quite the fantasy scenario you’ve dreamed up for me.” 

“You don’t have to be perfect at everything, you know.” 

“Yes, I do know.” 

“Do you really though? Because-“

“Yang?” 

“…Yeah?” 

Weiss sighs irritably. “It had nothing to do with you, okay? So fucking drop it.” 

“Yes, princess,” Yang teases. “Whatever you say.” 

“Call me ‘princess’ again and I will knee you in the balls.” 

“Shame I don’t actually have any balls.” 

“Oh, I think it’ll hurt just the same.” 

Yang laughs heartily, and, after a moment, Weiss can’t help but join in.  

“I think you secretly like being called ‘princess’,” Yang says, and Weiss scoffs, but a smile stretches her face. 

“I  _ so _ do not.” 

“I think you  _ so _ do.” 

Weiss rolls her eyes and leans in. She kisses Yang gently, lingering to savor the feeling before drawing away again. Her expression is soft and close. Her nose brushes Yang’s. Her breath tickles Yang’s lips. 

“I was a real princess once,” she whispers, “and I don’t ever want to be that lonely again.” 

Yang’s heart skips a beat. “You won’t be.” 

A flash of doubt crosses Weiss’ features, but it evaporates before Yang can really be sure she saw it all. A moment later Weiss is nuzzling under her chin, pressing in close. Maybe it’s normal to doubt after all they’ve been through. 

Yang closes her eyes and lets it go. 

Somehow or another, they’ll be okay. 

-


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5.11.19  
> ummmmm idk guys it's so late here. lol i need sleep. here's another chapter. one more to go!  
> ~enjoy <3

4.

A week passes, and then two.

Yang heals slowly, to the surprise of everyone, apparently, except Weiss.

“You were more banged up than you realized,” Weiss explains briskly, as though that alone justifies everything, but Yang can hardly remember a time when she slept so much.

She starts to look for excuses after a couple days, blaming it on the frigid weather or latent stress, anything that’ll ease her weird productivity guilt. Weiss, meanwhile, tends to her needs daily, coming and going with groceries, laundry, or whatever else needs doing. It’s an easy excuse to spend time together without arousing Ruby’s suspicions, except when Ruby does insist on tagging along. That they can do nothing about.

“Do you think we should just tell her?” Yang asks finally, when Weiss admits that she had lied about a doctor’s appointment to get out of the house unaccompanied.

Weiss bites her lip as she checks the flexibility of Yang’s healing wrist. “What good would that do?”

“Well, it would be nice not to sneak around.”

“Hm.” Weiss’ gaze stays fixed on her task. “Are you ready for this to be more than sneaking around?”

That brings Yang up short. She stares for several seconds, wordless, trying to understand the implications of Weiss’ rather bland tone.

“Aren’t you?” she asks finally, when nothing else comes to mind.

Weiss only frowns. “Not particularly. We haven’t in any way defined the parameters of this relationship so I hardly think it’ll stand up to scrutiny. Especially from your little sister; aka my partner and best friend.” Blue eyes flick up to meet Yang’s dumbfounded stare. “In other words, I don’t think this is a good time to rock Ruby’s world. Do you disagree?”

“No,” Yang murmurs, after a long silence, “but I guess I didn’t expect you to be so clinical about it.”

“I’m being clinical because one of us has to be,” Weiss says, reaching for the damp washcloth in the bowl at Yang’s bedside. “And also, I guess, because I’m a bit anxious. Hold still.”

Yang tries not to squirm. “Anxious about what?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Maybe?”

Weiss heaves a long suffering sigh and begins delicately cleaning the skin between Yang’s fingers. Her lips purse in concentration, and her bangs falls into her eyes, obscuring most of her expression from view.

“I find it hard to believe,” Weiss starts, after a protracted silence, “that you don’t have your own doubts about this.”

“I mean, I do,” Yang says. “Of course I do.”

“So, then, surely you can imagine mine?” She looks up to meet Yang’s gaze, and a thread of understanding stretches between them.

“Right,” Yang mumbles. “Understood.”

“There’s no rush on this,” Weiss continues, nonplussed. “Let’s just take our time and see where it goes.”

“Okay,” Yang says, nodding. “Take our time. Got it.”

Weiss returns to her task, and Yang lets the subject drop. She can’t help but feel, however, that time is the one thing they really don’t have.

-

 

The sex is good and getting better all the time, but Yang starts to want more than clandestine romps in her tiny apartment, and Weiss doesn’t really disagree. She’s been stuck at the office all week negotiating a labor dispute with the workers at Vale’s SDC refining facility and it’s taking a toll on her. Sometimes a quick lunch at her office cafeteria is all she can manage. They fit in little dates wherever they can.

Weiss catches up to Yang one Saturday morning at the Southgate flea market. It’s sunny and cold, but most of the snow has melted, leaving the ground dry and frozen.

“What are you doing?” she asks, slightly out of breath.

“Shopping,” Yang says, gesturing around at the line of stalls, “obviously.”

She tests the quality of a tumbled leather wallet between her fingers while Weiss looks on in open dismay. She follows Yang silently for several minutes while she picks up different wallets and card holders, opening them up to peek at the material inside, examining their seams and stitching.

“Is that supposed to be a Maison Monarque?” Weiss asks, when she can’t contain herself any longer. She snatches the decorated wallet out of Yang’s grasp and holds it up to her face. “This is a fake!” she exclaims, scandalized. “Look at the ‘M’. The points are too sharp and the pattern is chopped off awkwardly on the edges. Plus the stitching looks like a blind toddler did it.”

Yang shoots an apologetic glance at the irate shopkeeper eyeing them from his lawn chair and plucks the wallet from Weiss’ hands.

“Of course it’s fake,” she says, replacing it on the table. “This isn’t exactly Todd’s.”

Weiss huffs at the mention of her favorite department store. “I _had_ noticed. There isn’t even any free champagne.”

Yang struggles to contain her laughter, and Weiss’s deadpan expression begins to show cracks. They break at the same, grinning at each other like children, and Yang is a little taken aback by the fluttering of her heart. Weiss’ eyes are bright in the winter sunlight, the exact color of the clear sky above, and her cheeks are rosy from the cold. She looks like royalty in her long, white, fur-lined down coat and white, thigh high boots. She’s braided back her bangs on one side, and her lips shimmer with new gloss.

Yang leans down and kisses her ‘hello’, taking care to brush a thumb along the curve of her cheek.

“Good morning,” she says. “How did you sleep?”

“Oh, you know. Terribly.” Weiss rolls her eyes. “I love Ruby, but her nightmares are keeping Jaune and I up.”

“They always get worse this time of year,” Yang says quietly.

Weiss nods and looks away into the distance. The shopkeeper is still watching them warily. Yang reaches into her pocket, pulls out her old, crumbling wallet and extracts a couple bills.

“I’ll give you twenty for this one,” she says, pointing at the fake Maison Monarque.

“Deal,” the man says, nodding, and Yang tosses the cash over to him.

Weiss watches silently as she transfers her cards and change into the new wallet before pocketing it again. She hands her old one to the vendor for disposal, and they set off together down the little boulevard of shoppers. Weiss finds her hand and their fingers intertwine. Yang watches her breath cloud in front of her. She feels very calm today, very grounded.

“Why not just buy a real one?” Weiss asks finally when they pull up beside a coffee cart. “I don’t mean to sound snobby, but the quality on the real ones is just so much better, and they last a long time. My father’s had the same wallet for a least a decade.”

“Too expensive,” Yang says simply, scanning the little handwritten menu. “Even more expensive now with the sky high import costs.”

“We make good money as huntsmen.”

“Yeah, but I’m saving up.”

Weiss tilts her head curiously. “For what?”

“I dunno.” Yang shrugs. “A future, I guess.”

“Really?” Weiss’ eyes widen with surprise.

The rest of her question hangs unspoken between them.

“Blake’s been gone for a while now,” Yang says, sighing. “It used to be that couldn’t even imagine a life without her, but now… Now, I think I can.”

Weiss studies her for a long moment, then leans up on her toes and presses a kiss to Yang’s cheek. Yang feels a blush creep up her neck and stares down at Weiss in awe. She feels like an old corpse reanimated, like a dusty attic with the windows thrown open. Acting on impulse, she pulls Weiss to her, squeezing her tiny frame in the tightest hug she can manage. Weiss only squeaks with surprise before exhaling against Yang’s coat and returning the embrace.

“I hope this means time will finally start moving forward again,” Weiss murmurs against her chest, and Yang nods in agreement as she thinks of all the months she’s spent frozen in the past.

“I hope so, too.”

They stay like that for some minutes.

“Will you get me a small latte,” Weiss asks wetly when she finally pulls away. “I… um.” She swipes under her eyes with a thumb. “I need to make a call.”

“Sure,” Yang says hoarsely, and it takes a great effort not to watch her go.

When Yang gets home just a couple hours later, after dropping Weiss downtown at the office, a small wrapped package is waiting on her doorstep. Inside, on a bed of burgundy velvet, she finds another Maison Monarque wallet, nearly identical in color and style to her own, but the leather is buttery in her hand, and it smells like luxury when she sticks it against her nose.

She sits down on her bed and stares at the heavy tags, at the little booklet with the company history typed out in gold embossed letters, and when she’s finally stopped crying long enough to hold a steady a tone, she picks up her scroll and calls Weiss.

“Come over tonight,” she says into the voicemail. “I don’t care what you have to tell Ruby. I want to wake up with you tomorrow.”

-

 

It’s late, and windy, and threatening snow.

Weiss is hardly through the door before Yang has her pressed against it, stripping her of her coat and bag, pushing the fur-lined hat off her head. Everything drops to the floor, forgotten.

“Yang,” Weiss mumbles, between kisses, “what are you-?”

“My hand is healed,” Yang says, lips seeking skin, and that’s all it takes apparently to get Weiss on the same page, because then she’s winding her arms around Yang’s neck and lifting her legs to wrap around Yang’s waist.

“Counter,” she orders breathlessly, fixing her lips to Yang’s pulse point.

Yang doesn’t need to be told twice.

“God, baby, I’m gonna fuck you so hard.”

Weiss pants against her skin. Actually _pants_.

“Stop and I’ll kill you,” she says.

She keeps her mouth glued to Yang’s jaw as Yang hoists her up and pivots, carrying her into the dark kitchen. A stack of mail tips onto the floor. An expectant wine bottle tips precariously, wobbles, and settles down again. No sooner has Weiss hit the counter than she starts tugging at her tights. Her boots clatter against the hardwood, kicked off in a graceless haste. Her wool socks aren’t far behind.  

“Fucking help me with these,” Weiss demands, and all of Yang’s hair stands on end.

“I like it when you boss me around,” Yang growls.

Weiss only huffs with impatience. “I like it when you make me come. Hurry up!”

“Someone’s in a hurry tonight.”

“You’re not the only one who’s been waiting for your hand to heal, idiot!”

Yang opens her mouth to fire back another witty retort, but Weiss has had enough. She rolls her eyes and initiates a hungry, messy kiss. The swirling of her tongue is precise, and totally filthy. She’s been a quick study all along. It makes the blood rush to Yang’s head.

“Fuck,” Yang rasps.

Weiss doesn’t stop. She kisses harder, deeper. She bites and she tugs. Her hands dispose of Yang’s sweater in a hurry, and then it’s only a matter of ripping off her own tights and the flimsy underwear that Yang definitely wishes she had more time to appreciate.

“Ready when you are,” Weiss gasps, spreading her legs wide on the counter. “Please don’t make me wait any longer.”

Usually, Yang is the teasing kind, but not tonight. She dips into Weiss’ without preamble, groaning at the moisture she finds, before thrusting right inside with two flesh and bone, human fingers.

It’s as good as she remembers. She might be more excited than Weiss.

“Oh god,” she whispers.

Weiss doesn’t, or can’t, speak. Her head tips back and her hips pump forward, and the only sounds that fill the kitchen for the next half hour are desperate moans.

-

 

“We should do an actual dinner date,” Weiss says later, naked and resplendent under Yang’s finest sheets. “There’s a sushi place I want to try, and I can’t take Ruby and Jaune because they’re culinary philistines.”

“Oh, what, so I’m your second choice?” Yang teases, leaning over to kiss Weiss squarely on the temple.

“A distant third, actually,” Weiss tries and fails to stifle a grin. “I considered inviting Ginger from work.”

“You wound me!” Yang says, and flops back against the bed in theatrical fashion. “And here I thought we were lovers!”

“...Is that what we are?” Weiss asks, tone sobering.

“What?”

“Are we lovers?” She tilts her head on the pillow, blinking at Yang through the dark.

Yang falls silent for a moment. The wind outside has grown stronger with every hour, and she’s fairly certain now that a real storm is blowing in. She pulses her aura a bit to heat up the bed.

“I don’t know,” she admits.

‘Lovers…” Weiss tests the word on her tongue. “I guess that feels alright. A little old fashioned, maybe.”

“Yeah. I mean, everything else just seemed too formal.”

Weiss hums in agreement. “Are we heading toward something formal, though, do you think?”

Yang ignores the impulse to shift away, to create some distance between them, but her heart has started to pound and it’s very hard not to squirm all of sudden.

“Maybe,” she says, feeling decidedly cagey. “I’ve been taking things one day at a time lately.”

“Of course,” Weiss murmurs, and turns onto her side, curling up around Yang and tucking her head into the crook of Yang’s neck. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore. I know it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Yang trails off. “...Er, yeah,” she says at length. “Sorry.”

Weiss sighs. “It’s okay. It’s not what either of us expected.”

Yang swallows thickly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t regret anything, and I’m not done with this yet either. Whatever this is.”

“Whatever this is,” Weiss echoes wryly, and snuggles in closer.

-

 

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Weiss lately,” Ruby says, grunting to loosen a sticky bolt on her latest experiment.

It’s an auto tracking turret on a tripod base, one of three she’s been laboring over for months. They’ve been trying to find a way to hold a larger perimeter with fewer huntsmen, and short of reverse engineering an Atlesian military bot this is the best they’re going to get.

Yang hands Ruby a larger wrench and shrugs. “She’s doing her best, but I think she still needs regular breaks from you two love birds.”

Ruby wrinkles her grease-smeared nose. “Jaune hasn’t even been around much, though.”

With shoulders straining, she applies the new wrench and heaves one last time, throwing a burst of super speed into it. The stubborn bolt finally comes unstuck. She whistles appreciatively and holds out a hand for a high five, which Yang readily obliges.

“What’s the problem with this one?” Yang asks.

“It can’t always distinguish between me and a Grimm,” Ruby replies, wiping her brow on a stiff, oily rag. “I think I move too fast for it to follow and the AI gets confused.”

Yang laughs. “You move too fast for most things to follow. Grimm included.”

“Not for you, apparently.”

“I only know where you like to drop in.”

Ruby sighs, then smiles and glances over. “I guess I’m getting kind of predictable, huh. Maybe I should change things up.”

Yang’s smile turns cautious. “There’s nothing wrong with being predictable sometimes. The shrink said having a routine was good for you, right?”

Ruby nods, but she seems unconvinced, and when Yang stops to think about it, she realizes that something has been just a little bit off all day. She eyes her sister carefully, now hunched over a box of miscellaneous parts in her black tank top and baggy shop pants. Her hair is tied up in a short, choppy ponytail, streaked through as always with red, but also dirty and unkempt. Every exposed bit of skin is smeared with gun oil and marked with black grease. Ruby seems a bit...preoccupied.

“Is everything okay?” Yang asks slowly, watching for any changes in demeanor.

Ruby stiffens. “Yeah, fine.”

“You sure?” Yang shifts closer, until she can bump Ruby’s hip with her own and dislodge her from her task of digging through metal scraps. “Because how long have you been down here, sis?”

“I dunno.” Ruby’s brows knit in frustration. “A few hours?”

Yang glances up the humming fluorescent lights and then around at the rest of the basement. There is no obvious evidence to suggest Ruby’s lying, but she has a hunch and she’s sticking with it. She’s not usually wrong about her little sister’s habits.

“A few hours? Or a few days?”

Ruby’s shoulders go positively rigid and she pulls away from her workbench, arms curling around herself defensively. “Leave me alone, Yang.”

Alarm bells go off in Yang’s head. “Hey, I’m not trying to get on your case, okay? I’m just asking. What’s going on?”

Ruby sighs, tips her head back, and blinks up at the ceiling. A gulf of silence opens between them. Yang chews her lip and waits. She tries not to fill it. That was another thing the therapist said. She has to be patient.

“...It’s not that I don’t love Jaune,” Ruby says at length, gaze dropping off to the side, “but... I’m just not sure about all this.”

Yang pulls up a stool and sits. “Explain.”

Ruby sucks in a bracing breath and hops on the balls of her feet. Her posture has gone from rigid to nervous in the span of few seconds.

“I…” Ruby swallows thickly. “I miss Weiss.”

Yang cocks her head to one side. “That’s normal, right? She’s your best friend.”

“No, it’s not-” Ruby growls and rubs her hand over her face, inadvertently smearing more grease across her forehead. “Yang, I _miss_ her.”

“Oh.” The gears in Yang’s head grind to a halt. “You mean…?”

“I don’t know!” Ruby huffs and throws up her hands. “Ugh, I’m just so confused! I think I might be jealous? But of what?” She grimaces. “It’s not like Weiss is seeing anybody. She’s just hanging out with you sometimes, so why do I- Ugh!”

Ruby gets up and stalks the length of the workshop. The heel of her boot squeaks against the floor as she pivots. Yang winces. The sound draws goosebumps to her skin. Panicked thoughts race through her mind, twisting together like the tendrils of a garden vine. It’s a little bit hard to focus.

“I don’t know how to tell her,” Ruby says, as Yang tunes back in.

“Wait, you’re going to _tell_ her?”

“Of course!” Ruby looks at Yang with some distress. “It’s the right thing to do! Obviously Weiss has picked up on me acting all weird and that’s why she’s been finding excuses to get out of the house.”

Yang winces again. “Well. Okay. But, uh-”

“I just need to talk to her.” Ruby paces another circle around the room. “I need to figure out what to say.”

“Maybe you should…think about it some more first? You know uh, get your story straight?”

Ruby shakes her head. “If I think about it anymore I’ll go crazy. I just need to get it out there.”

Yang’s racing heart begins to sink as the adrenalin rush sours. “Yeah. That’s probably for the best, Rubes. Honestly.”

“You think so?”

Yang nods with a heavy head. She feels disconcertingly numb.

“Yeah.”

Ruby smiles. It’s tentative and fragile, but it’s radiant, and it’s there. Yang wants so very badly to take this as the good sign that it is, to be happy for her sister and all the progress she’s made, but it feels like she’s cracking right up the middle, and it’s taking everything she has not to let it show.

Weiss loves Ruby.

That’s how this whole thing started. Whatever she and Yang have been doing for the last few weeks, _this_ is a no brainer.

It’s over.

“I’ve gotta go shower!” Ruby says, clapping her hands excitedly. “I’ve gotta order dinner or something before she gets home.”

Yang musters an anemic smile as Ruby races up the basement stairs.

Each footfall resounds in her ears like the beating of her broken heart.

-

  


The snow this time melts quickly and a cold rain sweeps over the city, turning the sidewalks into disgusting, slushy bogs. Yang tromps through the slurry in heavy boots, wearing a hard expression and an old camo army coat. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her hands are stuffed in her pockets. She’s been doing shots since five, and it’s getting close to ten, but she still has no idea where to go.

“You’re being weird,” Sun says, slinking along beside her. “You gonna tell me what’s up or are we gonna keep drinking?”

“We’re gonna keep drinking,” Yang growls.

“Okay. That’s cool, too.”

They stop at the corner under a neon sign, casting a red glow like cherry syrup over the mounds of melting snow. Yang sniffs and reaches into her pocket, where she finds a carton of crushed up cigarettes. There are only a few worth salvaging. She hasn’t felt the need to smoke in weeks.

“You ever fuck someone you shouldn’t?” she asks, patting herself for a lighter.

Sun offers his zippo. “Does Neptune count?”

Yang snorts and accepts his offer, hunching over to block out some of the drizzle. It takes six clicks and the focus of a master huntsman to get the end of her stale cigarette burning.

“Sure.” She shrugs. “Why not.”

Her scroll beeps again and she studiously ignores it.

Sun glances at her pocket. “So, that’s what’s up, huh?”

“Yep.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“That chick’s sure texting you a lot.”

Yang inhales too much and tries not to cough. She really wants to cough.

“What makes you think it’s a girl?” she rasps.

Sun shrugs. “Have you ever been with a dude?” He shrugs again harder when she narrows her eyes at him. “Not saying you’re a lesbian, just saying-”

“Whatever. It’s fine. It’s probably the truth.”

Yang sighs and drags on her cigarette. Sun, thankfully, lets her finish it in peace, but once she’s ground it out in the snow and tucked the butt into her pocket he starts in on her again.

“You sure you don’t wanna talk about it?”

“Ugh!” Yang rolls her eyes and tries not to think about just how much the action reminds her of Weiss. “You’re relentless!”

“Just trying to be a friend, my dude.”

Yang rubs at her brow. She smells like smoke now, and whatever brand of well tequila she spilled on her sleeve. Everything is blurry. She thought it would help, but it’s only made things worse. If she’s honest with herself, it didn’t help much after Blake either. Maybe she shouldn’t drink when she’s upset.

“I just- got attached,” she says, through clenched teeth.

Sun nods. “Understandable.”

“It was stupid. I shouldn’t have.”

“Maybe not, but it happens. The head and the heart do their own thing most of the time.”

“I’ve only ever really been with Blake, and this was new, and it was just…”

“A shock to the system?”

Yang stays silent and Sun nods like he understands. Maybe he really does understand. It’s hard to say with how little she sees him anymore. He’s in and out of the city on jobs, and he sends her a text every time he lands, but she doesn’t always answer. He was Blake’s friend first. He still reminds Yang so much of her.

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up,” he says, sunny as always, not dampened in the slightest by her mood. “This isn’t something you need to be ashamed of, you know? It just happened! It’s no one’s fault.”

“I wish that were true,” Yang admits, kicking at the slush.

Sun regards her seriously for a bit, tail swishing back and forth. “This has really got you bent outta shape, huh.”

“Yeah.”

He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “More shots?”

“More shots,” Yang says, and sags with relief when he reaches for the door of the bar.

-

 

The sunrise wakes her first thing, bloody red and bright under a shelf of dark, retreating clouds. A dated set of grey blinds hangs open over the apartment window. Yang blinks at an unfamiliar nightstand and licks her lips, chapped, tasting of sour tobacco. Her hand slides over soft, clean sheets. Her toes wiggle under a heavy comforter. She notes the time on the alarm clock and the substantial silver watch, the cough drop wrappers, the loose change. The air smells very faintly of cologne.

“Fuck,” she whispers, and rolls gingerly onto her back.

A light snore draws her attention, the sound of steady breathing. Yang carefully turns her head and notes the mop of platinum blonde hair on the pillow beside her.

Just Sun. Thank god.

It says something, she thinks, as she clambers silently out of bed, that there was a moment of actual suspense. That she worried, even for a fraction of a second, that she might’ve done something stupid, might’ve drowned her conscience in liquor and followed someone home.

Her head pounds and her stomach rolls, but she’s clothed and unsullied.

It takes a while to find her scroll. She checks the sparsely furnished bedroom, clearly rented for Sun’s short stay in town, then wanders through the rest of the spartan apartment. It’s not in the bathroom. It’s not with her shoes or her jacket at the door. She’s scratching her head, considering just crawling back in bed, dignity be damned, when she spots it blinking on the kitchen counter next to Sun’s wallet.

So maybe he’d taken it away from her?

God.

Yang dons her shoes and her coat, stuffs her scoll in her pocket, and heads out into the icy morning wind. It’s a long walk home from the East End, where Sun is staying, back to her little shelled out neighborhood by the harbor. Most of the buildings here survived the conflict and it feels vaguely suburban with its dentist offices and its bank branches and its dry cleaners. Little mid century cottages butt up against the street, their winter gardens clean and tidy. It’s a bit like downtown Patch if she squints.

 _We were so eager to go to war_ , she thinks, and sighs, tilts her head back into the red sun and basks in it. Her boots scuff against the sidewalk, catching on stubborn clumps of slush. She spreads her arms into the wind and lets it chill her until she’s shivering, until the stickiness and the fever sweats have cooled to something bearable.

And then the tears come.

-

 

“Where the fuck _were you_?” demands a sharp voice as she steps into her apartment.

Yang reels back in shock, red eyed and rattled, wobbling on dead legs. She’s so dehydrated her throat burns as she swallows, spine bumping against the door. Furious blue eyes flash in front of her.

“Weiss?”

“Did you even _look_ at your scroll?!” A small fist closes on her collar and drags her close. “You smell like an ashtray, Yang Xiao Long.”

“I- I...”

“God, I don’t think I wanna hear it!” Weiss growls, and steps away.

Yang sinks dizzily to the floor. Her butt thumps against the hardwood. Her head lolls against the door. A cool hand presses against her forehead.

“You’re burning up.”

“I’m hungover,” Yang croaks.

She wants to curl into a fetal position. Walking home, in hindsight, was a terrible idea.

Weiss ‘tsks’ and pads away into the kitchen. Yang closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of Weiss rifling through cabinets, pulling down a glass, filling it with water from the sink. She’s barefoot, Yang realizes deliriously. She’s been here for a while. Waiting.

The cool fingers return to her forehead, brushing her messy hair back. She hadn’t heard Weiss approach.

“Are you going to be sick?”

Yang isn’t sure.

“Yang?”

Yang slowly shakes her head.

The rim of the glass comes to her lips and she parts them automatically, tipping her head back with the guiding motion of Weiss’ hand. Her eyes burn with tears that won’t come. A low sob rattles in her throat, but Weiss shushes her softly.

“Drink, babe.”

Yang drinks.

She coughs. She sputters. She swallows too fast and has to take a second to breathe. Weiss doesn’t push, only soothes and waits, patience supplanting ire. When Yang finally blinks her bleary eyes open she finds a worried expression creasing Weiss’ delicate features.

“You’re being so nice to me,” Yang rasps.

Weiss’ mouth twists as she takes a seat across from Yang on the floor. She arranges herself cross-legged, scooting in until their shins bump together. Yang folds her arms over her kneecaps and rests her chin on top.

“Why are you being so nice?” Yang presses, and Weiss heaves a sigh.

“Because I owe you a few mornings of hangover aftercare.”

“That’s the only reason?”

Blue eyes turn icy. “Don’t push your luck.”

“I don’t have any luck.”

Weiss rolls her eyes. “Oh, please.”

Yang watches her warily. The dizziness has returned, and with it the nausea, but she doesn’t miss the slight tousle of Weiss’ silvery white hair, loose to her shoulders and softly rumpled, like she’s slept on it. The oversized sweatshirt is Yang’s too, grey and faded, elastic cuffs worn. Nothing Weiss would ever own herself, only something she would borrow. Something she would pluck off the top of the hamper and bring to her nose. Breathe in.

Yang’s mind wanders to an image of Weiss alone in her bed, curled up in her clothes, waiting.

“I had the most interesting conversation with Ruby last night,” Weiss says suddenly, and shatters the image like glass.

“I bet you did,” Yang replies faintly.

“She kissed me.”

Yang’s throat swells. Her eyes sting. She hides her face away in her arms and mumbles her answer against her coat sleeve.

“And?”

“And I wanted to talk to you about it, but I couldn’t _find_ you.”

“I don’t think I wanted to be found,” Yang mutters, shifting to lay her cheek along her forearm.

“You knew.”

Yang nods.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Weiss’ voice rises sharply in pitch, ringing in Yang’s throbbing ears. “You didn’t think that maybe I would appreciate some warning?”

Yang winces. “She didn’t give me much notice either, okay? I panicked.”

Weiss squints and tilts her head to one side. “Why?”

“You know why.”

A tense silence falls over them.

“Tell me what to do,” Weiss demands thickly, weakly.

Yang closes her eyes. “I can’t.”

“Yang, _please_.”

“I _can’t,_ Weiss.”

“...I’ve wanted this for so long,” she says, voice wavering, “and now I have it and I don’t know what to do with it. I just- I don’t know what to _do_.”

“You’d be stupid to pass this opportunity up,” Yang murmurs, lifting her head to look Weiss squarely in the eye.

It takes a strength she didn’t know she had.

“Yang-”

“You think I wouldn’t jump at the chance to have Blake back again?”

Weiss blinks rapidly, eyes crystal bright, and Yang sees in them the telltale sheen of tears. This is the painful truth they’ve both been avoiding. This is the arrow she’s held in her bow. They took such care to build their bubble, their own little world to retreat to, isolated and insulated. But reality strikes like a dagger all the same, and there is nothing now that will lessen its impact.

“You love her,” Yang says, voice hard, emotions dammed. “You’ve got an actual chance to be with the person you love, so go for it. Don’t hold back.”

Tears trickle down Weiss’ cheeks.

“This isn’t fair to you,” she says.

“I knew what I was getting into,” Yang answers resolutely. “I knew the risks.”

“I know, but Yang…”

“Go,” Yang whispers. “Go be with her.”

She struggles to her feet as Weiss watches her from the floor, frozen. The room shifts and Yang’s vision swims. She needs to be horizontal. Her body turns itself instinctively towards the bed and she begins to shuffle in that direction.

“She’s probably wondering where you are,” Yang says over her shoulder. “You should go.”

She sheds her coat and steps out of her boots, wobbling on unsteady legs. The sun outside her window is bright, and the sky is clear, and Yang wishes overwhelmingly that it was raining, that it was dark and dreary. She fights the painful lump rising in her throat as she strips off her jeans.

Behind her, Weiss rises and stands aimlessly in the middle of the room.

“I guess I’ll just go then,” she says stiffly.

Yang nods, croaks out the steadiest “okay” she can muster, and refuses to turn around.

She listens to Weiss gather up her things as she crawls into bed and pulls the blanket over her head. Her skin is sticky and it catches on the sheets unpleasantly. The morning sun shines too brightly to block out completely. Her stomach is rolling. Weiss is crying. It’s going to be a miserable day.

The front door clicks shut as Weiss finally leaves.

Yang closes her eyes.

-


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6.19.19  
> this story keeps getting longer and i'm not even sorry. enjoy the angst, heathens.  
> <3

**5.**

One night of drinking turns into two, turns into three.

On the fourth, Yang decides to take a break from lonely shots at sticky bars. She meets Sun instead at some swanky waterfront taphouse boasting an extensive beer selection and a critically acclaimed seafood menu. The building is just one in a long line of old, refurbished fish canneries, fresh off a post-war remodel and lit up with spotlights. The polished steel sign bolted to the warehouse facade practically gleams as she rolls up on her bike.

It’s not her usual scene, not a place she’d usually go. Not without Weiss towing her along, at least. She’s not a high roller and she’s never liked rubbing elbows with the city’s young blue bloods either, but she isn’t necessarily opposed to stepping out of her comfort zone for a night. At least, not until she sees that Sun hasn’t come alone.

“You didn’t say _Jaune_ was coming too,” Yang hisses when they go out for a smoke, laying into him the first chance she gets.

He takes a reflexive step back at the blatant accusation in her tone. “Whoa, sorry, dude! I didn’t realize it would be an issue.”

“Seriously? How is it _not_ an issue?”

Sun just stares at her, clueless and distressed, and Yang realizes, belatedly, that she isn’t being fair. She hasn’t actually told him what’s going on, with Jaune or with any of them. In fact, there are only two people in Remnant at the moment who can see the whole plot, and now, with the reality of her situation settling like wreckage all around her, Yang can’t see how her relationship with Weiss was anything other than an aborted affair undertaken in guilty silence.

She suddenly feels like crying.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, don’t do that!” Sun takes her by the arm and pulls into a darker corner of the sidewalk, away from the crowd of noisy yuppies gathered around the front door. “Whatever boneheaded thing I did, I’m sorry, okay?”

“It’s not you,” Yang sniffs. “It’s- God, it’s just fucking karma.”

His brow furrows in confusion, and it’s almost cute, the way he always tries so hard, even when he’s completely out of his depth. Yang can’t help but like him. She never could resent him. Instead, their shared love of Blake only served to bind them closer together, like two moths circling the same flame, two friends sharing a mutual grief.

“I suppose I can just tell you,” Yang says, after a moment’s consideration.

“Okay,” Sun agrees, tail twitching earnestly. “Tell me what?”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Just dive right in.” He makes a little motion with his hands. “Just- you know- _schwoop!_ ”

Yang sucks in a quivering breath and exhales slowly. “Okay. So. I was sleeping with Weiss.”

“Whoa.” Sun blinks and shakes his head out like a wet dog. “Whoa!”

“I- Yeah.” Yang bites her lip.

“Dude, that’s huge!”

“I know.”

“That’s amazing!”

“I kno- Wait, amazing?” Yang squints. “What?”

“Yeah!” Sun raises his hand, motioning for a high five. “Up top, girl! She’s a serious hottie!”

Yang returns the high five a bit squeamishly. “That made me feel vaguely dirty. I think Weiss would throw a glyph in my face if she was here right now.”

“Yeah, well she’s not,” Sun says, growing suddenly serious. “So what the hell happened there? Does it have anything to do with how many beers Jaune has had tonight?”

“You are surprisingly astute sometimes,” Yang says.

“Thanks. I should actually probably check on him. He might be throwing up.”

“He’s a full grown huntsman, he can handle himself.”

Sun rubs the back of his head. “I know, but...still.”

“Listen, you can’t talk to him about any of this, okay? He doesn’t know, and he can’t find out.”

“Why all the cloak and dagger?”

Yang hesitates, then says, very deliberately, “the reason Weiss and I broke things off is because Ruby realized she has feelings for Weiss, and Weiss has been in love with my sister for literal ages.” Yang gestures loosely toward the bar. “Our boy Jaune is heartbroken for same reason I am right now.”

“Oh fuck,” Sun says simply, and it sum mores than anything else could. “I’m guessing Ruby didn’t know about you and Weiss then either.” Yang makes a face and Sun’s expression twists with sympathy. “Fuck, dude. I’m sorry.”

Just then, both of their scrolls buzz with a text message. They go to check them simultaneously. It’s from Jaune.

“He’s throwing up,” Yang says, deadpan.

“Oh, jeez, yep. I’m on it.” Sun makes to leave, but stalls for a moment, bouncing restlessly on the balls of his feet. “By the way, thanks for telling me. I know it probably wasn’t easy.”

He turns to jog off before she can think of a proper response.

-

  


She stops going out.

A week goes by and Yang hardly leaves her apartment. There’s no reason to, she thinks. She has everything she needs inside, and anyway, she doesn’t really want to go anywhere or see anyone. She sends out a group text saying she’ll be busy with a consulting job and turns her scroll off, leaves it face down on her nightstand. It all feels disconcertingly familiar, ordering take out and curling up around her laptop, sleeping in the middle of the day, lying wide awake in the middle of the night. She drinks down the bottle of vodka Weiss left behind, then makes her way quickly through her meager stores of wine. She smokes cigarettes in the frozen back garden and squints into the sun, hood pulled over her head, hair hanging down in tangled curls.

“Tell me I did the right thing,” she says to the sky.

The air is freezing, but she can’t be bothered to go upstairs and get a thicker coat. The goosebumps on her skin are so stiff it’s nearly painful. Her back muscles ache from lack of use.

“Tell me I did the right thing,” she whispers again, but no one answers.

The street out front is still. The boats in the harbor are silent.

She tugs the hood down over her eyes and drops her head between her knees.

-

 

She packs up Weiss’ things in a box that she shoves to the back of her closet, but there is no escape from her ghosts in Vale, so she takes an assignment out of town. The first one she can find.

“Do you really have to go alone?”

“Yeah. It’s a solo contract.”

“But you’ve just barely healed,” Ruby says, face scrunching.

Yang sighs. Her sister looks much perkier than usual as she sits cross-legged in the middle of Yang’s bed. Her hair and clothes are clean. It seems like she’s been eating regular meals, and her skin is a normal color.

“I’ve got cabin fever,” Yang replies, forcing a little pitch into her flat monotone. “I’ve gotta shake things up or I’m gonna go nuts.”

“But why do you have to go alone? Shouldn’t we go as a team?”

Yang sighs. She folds the last of her shirts into neat little squares and moves onto pants. It’s still winter in Vale, but it’s always warmer down south. She thinks about packing a swimsuit and goes back to her chest of drawers to search for one.

“I just need a little me time, Rubes.” She tugs the string of a floral print bikini top out of her underwear drawer. “I won’t be gone long.”

“You’ve just never…” Ruby trails off and bites her lip, looking guilty.

“Never what?” Yang asks, turning.

“Nothing,” Ruby mumbles.

Yang blinks slowly and forces herself to ask. “Things are going well with Weiss, aren’t they?”

“Yeah?”

“Is that a question?”

Ruby huffs a laugh and looks away. There’s a bit of a shimmer in her silver eyes and Yang studies the softness of her expression. Even the scars across her cheek look better now, more faded and less jagged. She looks healthy. It’s been a very long time since she’s looked healthy.

“It’s a little bit awkward still,” Ruby admits, blushing lightly. “We’ve been partners for so long it’s just…a change.”

“That makes sense,” Yang replies, tossing a few more pairs of socks into her suitcase.

“But things are good,” Ruby rushes to add, and even through the twinge of pain Yang can’t help but smile.

“I’m glad.”

“Hey, Yang…” Ruby cocks her head curiously. “Are you okay?”

Yang’s spine goes stiff. “I’m fine. Just feeling cooped up, you know?”

“Yeah, totally. But like, you’ve just seemed kind of um. I don’t know. Distant lately?”

Yang sighs and blinks down at the floor, holding back tears. She has to come up with something believable or Ruby won’t let it go. Ruby’s going to pick and scratch until she knows what’s wrong. She’s too unselfish to ignore someone else’s pain, and the more she comes out of her head, the more she’s starting to pay attention again. Yang can’t lie to her forever. Not completely.

“I met someone,” Yang starts, “and I thought maybe we had something…but. No. It didn’t work out.”

Ruby straightens up on the bed, practically vibrating with interest. “Wait, who? When?”

“No one you know,” Yang mumbles.

“Yang, tell me!”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Rubes. Sorry.”

Ruby deflates a bit, though she looks no less interested. She watches Yang intensely while she zips her suitcase shut and sets about packing up her battle gear.

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice you were dating someone,” Ruby says.

Yang’s insides clench. “Dating is a strong word.”

“So it wasn’t serious?”

Yang shrugs. “Not serious enough.”

Ruby untangles her legs and rises from the bed. She makes her way to Yang and wraps her in a tight hug.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” she murmurs into Yang’s shoulder.

Fresh tears prick at Yang’s eyes. She swallows against the lump in her throat.

“Me too,” she mutters.

“I’m proud of you, though,” Ruby continues, “because I know even thinking about someone new is a huge step.”

All the muscles in Yang’s chest constrict at once. Her head spins, her chest throbs, and she finds it very difficult all of a sudden to breathe. It _hurts_ . Each inhalation _aches_ . She made her decision for good reasons, for _selfless_ reasons, and there should be some relief in that. There should be some relief in having done the right thing, because there is still some justice in the world, but all she can feel is the pain of loss.

She stays silent to conceal the tremor she’s sure would carry in her voice. She keeps her eyes closed so Ruby won’t see the tears. She hugs her sister tighter and hopes that it’ll all be worth it in the end, when Ruby is healthy and happy, and their little trio doesn’t feel quite so incomplete anymore.

“Thanks, Ruby,” she whispers.

“Anything for you,” Ruby replies, and kisses the side of her head.

-

 

Weiss leaves a snippy voicemail on her scroll.

_“Were you even going to say goodbye? Or were you just going to let me find out from Ruby that you’re skipping town?”_

Yang frowns. She squirms in her seat and peeks out the window of her airship cabin. They’ve been de-icing the wings for the better part of 20 minutes and the passengers are starting to get antsy. Red lights blink across the slick, black tarmac.

She composes a short, if enigmatic reply.

_ >i just need a breather. sorry. _

Weiss’ response comes immediately.

> _apparently we’ve still learned nothing about proper communication._

Yang smiles ruefully at the screen. She can hear Weiss speaking the words perfectly in her head, rolling her eyes as she does so. An acute sadness burrows down into Yang’s chest and plants itself there like a thorn, pain flaring with every beat of her heart. She sighs heavily, because she’s tired, and sore, and because she’s not yet hollow. Everything’s still fresh. It still stings. It still throbs at every moment.

> _i’ll see you in a couple weeks,_ she types.

> _be safe_ , Weiss replies.

Yang tips her head against the glass and closes her eyes.

-

 

Vacuo is hot.

“We’re having an unseasonably warm winter,” the clerk tells her at the hotel desk, which strikes a tired, jetlagged Yang as overwhelmingly amusing, because they’ve had nothing but bitter cold in Vale since November.

“In that case, I’d like to upgrade,” she replies. “Something near the pool, please.”

She trades out her boots and pants for rubber slides and shorts in the room, then makes her way down to the 24 hour convenience store across the boulevard to buy beer. The air is breezy and dry. Wayward moths flutter around the old lamp posts. There were crystal clear skies in Vacuo once, before all the light pollution came, but that doesn’t stop her from scuffing her heels against the time-worn sandstone and tilting her head up towards the stars, picking out whatever constellations she can amidst the purplish, midnight haze.

She drinks a beer out of the bottle as she wanders the block, six pack dangling from her other hand, passing lively bars and restaurants, groups of people out for a stroll just like her. It’s different than it is at home. The Vacuans come out after the desert sun goes down, and the city is lively late into the night. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly. An aroma of spices carries on the breeze, of curry, cayenne, cinnamon, pepper and paprika, wafting downwind from the late night fry stalls with their colorful umbrellas and awnings.

She buys a plate of curried goat and rice for dinner and sits alone at a picnic table, eating slowly, drinking slowly, thinking about nothing in particular, letting her mind drift away into a vacant space where she can just absorb, can just exist.

It’s refreshing. Relaxing almost.

In the morning, she wakes late. The sun is high and hot, and the room is stuffy. She throws back the shutters and squints into a burning blue sky, made brighter still for the crystalline tint of winter.

The dispensary just a couple blocks away is having a sale she takes full advantage of as she selects a pack of rolling papers and a cheap grinder. It’s not something she indulges in often, and especially not around Weiss, who seems to disdain the habit out of a sense of lingering aristocratic propriety, but there was a time, after Ruby had gone, when sleep was elusive and Yang was forced to seek alternative solutions, even if it meant slipping bartenders extra change under the palm of her hand. Vale isn’t quite so relaxed as the Kingdom of Vacuo.

She takes the long way back and has an early lunch at a kebab stall. When she arrives back at the hotel sometime later, she sets herself up in wooden tanning chair by the poolside, smokes a leisurely joint, and closes her eyes for a bit as she basks in the sun. It’s not until her muscles are the consistency of warm rubber that she finally calls her dad.

“Did you know before things went down with Raven that you liked Summer?” she asks. “Or did it kind of just…happen?”

Taiyang lets out a slow, whistling breath. _“Oh boy. It’s been a long time, Yang. I- There were- …Why are you asking this now?”_

“Because something kind of just happened,” she says, pushing sweaty fingers into her hair. “To me, I mean. I don’t know.”

_“You mean you’re seeing someone?”_

“Not anymore.”

He hesitates. _“That’s a big step.”_

Yang shrugs. “I guess.”

_“Are you okay?”_

“I’m in Vacuo,” she says, instead of answering, and he seems to sense something in her tone because he pauses again.

_“Where’s Ruby?”_

“She’s at home.”

 _“Is she okay?”_  Taiyang asks, fishing.

“Better than okay, probably.” Yang laughs once. It sounds strange. “Probably having the time of her life.”

“ _Why? What does that mean?”_

“Something recently happened to her, too,” Yang says, and sighs theatrically. “She’s all loved up.”

_“What, with Jaune?“_

“No. He’s out of the picture.”

 _“Oh.”_ Taiyang makes a noise of surprise. _“And who’s the new guy? Anyone I know?”_

Yang’s mood sours abruptly and she swallows. The drugs were supposed to help with this part. She was supposed to be over this by now. It’s been _weeks._ She tries to gather herself, tries to answer, but shame congeals in the back of her throat, oily, heavy, and thick.

 _“Yang,”_ Taiyang prompts warily, like he’s confused, like he’s trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together.

Suddenly, Yang isn’t sure she really wants him to figure it out.

“Yeah, you know her,” she answers finally, and hears his slight intake of breath.

_“Who?”_

Yang swallows again, feels the dryness and the ache, feels the heavy beating of her heart. “I should let Ruby tell you herself,” she croaks. “When she’s ready.”

 _“Darlin’,”_ he says, like she’s five years old again, running through the high, summer grass outside their house, _“you aren’t making much sense. What is this all about?”_

Yang breaks. “It’s nothing,” she whispers. “Never mind.”

“Wait, but-”

“I’ve gotta go, Dad. I’m sorry. I’ll call you later.”

She hangs up her scroll and turns it off. She doesn’t call back.

-

 

The job isn’t enough to really take her mind off things, and that’s a problem.

It’s a routine patrol post just outside the city walls. There are a handful of other junior huntsmen involved, of whom she’s the most veteran by far, and unlike Vale this time of year there isn’t much to do. She’ll see three or four grimm in a day if she’s lucky. By the time she gets done with her shifts in the evenings she’s so bored she’s driven to drink.

She’s regressing and she knows it.

She extends her contract anyway.

Near the end of the third week, she sucks it up, swallows her pride, and calls Velvet, who brings Yatsu to meet her for dinner at a restaurant in the garden district.

They arrive hand in hand, as domestic as ever. Yatsu looks handsome in a green kurta and flowing white pants. Velvet looks even better in a matching green dress, with her tall ears alert and her long, chestnut hair brushed to a shine. By comparison, Yang feels scruffy in her post work leather and denim.

“Long time no see,” Velvet says, reaching to cover her hand across the table.

Her soft expression is softened further by the gentle lantern light that illuminates their table from above. The whole of the restaurant is intimate and cozy, with low ceilings and white linens and soft leather chairs. Yang shifts under Velvet’s touch. She’s tired, and feeling too much right now to hide it.

“It really has been a while,” she replies candidly, toying with the stem of her fork. “How’s Coco?”

Velvet glances at Yatsu, who rolls his eyes fondly.

“On another business trip,” he says.

“The house is too quiet without her,” Velvet adds, and Yatsu nods in agreement. “She’s been gone a lot lately. I think we’ll all be glad when she’s not traveling so much.”

Yang smiles politely. “I can imagine. How are things going with her new line?”

“We’ll see. She’s meeting some executives in Mistral tomorrow to pitch her summer collection. If all goes well she’ll get her first big sale of the year.”

“She’ll get it,” Yatsu says with his usual, quiet confidence, but Velvet looks a little less assured.

“I hope so,” she sighs.

He bends down to kiss her temple and Yang fixes her gaze on the tablecloth. A knot of envy forms in her throat. Her friends have each found two people where she can’t even manage to find one, and it’s a bitter taste on her tongue. She signals a passing waiter and orders a bottle of wine.

“So, how are you holding up?” Velvet asks.

Yang flinches slightly. The question was inevitable, but she still isn’t prepared when it comes. She doesn’t really know how to answer. Is she better? Worse? Better, then worse?

She hasn’t seen either of them since the funeral so of course they would ask. Of course. But what should she tell them? What _can_ she tell them? She isn’t sure anymore why a civil dinner with old friends seemed like a good idea. She could’ve found someone at a bar to talk to if she was feeling the urge to pour her heart out. She could’ve not talked and danced all night in a club instead. She could’ve-

“Yang?”

“Sorry,” Yang mumbles, and runs her fingers through her hair. She’s aware she’s being weird. “I’m fine. I’ve been better, but I’m fine.”

“Understatement of the year,” Yatsu says dryly, and Yang’s eyes snap up to his.

“What?”

“Oh, uh.” He winces. “I mean that you’ve been better. It’s an understatement that you’ve been better.”

She stares at him, casting about in her mind for something appropriate to say to diffuse the tension that’s fallen over the table, but she can’t think of anything. It’s not like her to be so vacant. She was starting to get her shit together again, and now she’s just…

“I should go,” she says, and moves to push out her chair. “I’m sorry, I’m just not good company right now.”

She makes to get up, but Velvet lunges after her across the table.

“Yang, wait.” A hand catches her wrist. “Don’t go.”

Tension crackles up her arm and into her shoulder. Her body feels like it’s too tight, like it’s old leather stretched over brittle bones, and she just can’t seem to find herself anymore. She’s either too empty or too full, and she just doesn’t know what to _do_.

“Yang.” A second hand settles on her forearm, heavy and warm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of your situation.”

“We’re your friends. You can talk to us,” Velvet urges, long ears bowing forward. “I’m a great listener.”

“Or, if you don’t wanna talk, that’s fine too,” Yatsu says.

“Just tell us what you need,” Velvet pleads.

Yang relents with a heavy, body sagging sigh. “Okay. Yeah, sorry.”

Strong hands, large and small, guide her back onto her seat, and she settles in it without quite knowing how she got there. The wine arrives at the table not a minute later, and that immediately makes everything better.

“There is actually something that would help,” Yang says, after the waiter has filled all their glasses, and Velvet leans forward on her elbows.

“Name it.”

Yang clears her throat. “I’m looking for more work.”

“There are some big contracts opening up next week,” Velvet says, “but they’re all pretty far southeast of here.”

“I hope you don’t mind long train rides,” Yatsu adds.

“Not at all,” Yang replies, and takes a liberal swallow of her wine. “Tell me more.”

-

 

She rides the bus back from dinner and walks the rest of the way in the dark, head bent, earbuds in, listening to some music to take her mind off of things. The shops are bustling as the weekend approaches and there are lights strung up in the palm trees on the promenade. People stroll arm in arm through the city square. A large fountain marks the center of it, adorned with sculpted marble figures of heroes past and a sandstone obelisk capped with bronze.

Yang stops for a bit to take it all in, the fig trees and the prickly pears and the old stone buildings with their grave, fortified facades. There is something inscrutably ancient about the Kingdom of Vacuo. Something old. Something heavy. She lets the cool, night air flow over her and breathes in deep, until she feels small again, until her problems feel manageable.

It’s not until she gets back to the little economy apartment she’s renting that she checks her scroll and sees she has a voicemail waiting for her.

 _“I wasn’t really sure before whether we were supposed to be talking to each other or not,”_ Weiss’ says in a clipped, all business voice, _“but then I gave it some thought and…well. It would be pretty ridiculous not to, right? Because we were teammates first, and friends second, and lovers third, and I just… I don’t understand this silence. Are we taking a break? Are we regrouping? I don’t- … Just call me, please.”_

The message ends abruptly and Yang stares at the screen.

She feels like she’s just heard the voice of a ghost.

Her thumb is pressing the call button before she really realizes what she’s doing, and she panics, nearly hanging up out of reflex, but Weiss answers on the second ring.

_“Do you have any idea what time it is here?”_

“S-sorry,” Yang stutters. “Forgot about the time difference.”

 _“Clearly,”_ Weiss grumbles, and then murmurs a quiet apology to someone off the line.

Yang realizes it must be Ruby. Weiss is in bed with her _sister_.

“I’ll call back later,” Yang says, but Weiss releases a snort of such pointed derision that she freezes with her hand over the disconnect button.

 _“Oh, sure,”_ she hears faintly. _“Run away again.”_

Yang’s hackles rise. She puts the scroll back to her ear. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

_“Why did you call?”_

“You called me!”

 _“Oh, right.”_ Yang hears the sound of tap water filling a glass. _“Sorry, I’m still half asleep.”_

“I’m sure. It sounds like you had a busy night,” Yang replies snidely, and immediately rubs a hand over her face in frustration.

She’s acting like such an utter fucking weirdo. God.

_“You don’t have to sound so bitter about it. You’re the one who pushed me away.”_

“Yeah, because it was the right thing to do.”

_“Was it? Because I didn’t realize that meant we couldn’t be friends anymore. Or even talk anymore. Or even be civil to each other at all. I’ve had longer conversations with Jaune in the last month than I have with you, and he has every reason in the world right now to hate me.”_

Yang growls something unintelligible in response, and Weiss just tsks under her breath.

_“Way to be mature.”_

“What do you even want to talk about? Like what even is there to say?”

_“Gosh, Yang, I don’t know. Maybe, where the hell are you right now? And what the hell are you doing?”_

“I’m in Vacuo on a job. I already told Ruby-”

_“Yeah, that you have some big contract down there and blah blah blah. It’s all bullshit.”_

Yang blinks and falls onto the hard little couch. “Excuse me?”

_“I scoured the KOV boards after you left. I didn’t see anything that sounded even remotely important.”_

“It’s just a local thing.”

 _“It must be_ very _local.”_

“Their cash spends fine, so I’m not too worried about it,” Yang snaps.

There’s a pause while Weiss collects herself or drinks her water or something. Yang has no idea. The line goes completely silent.

 _“When are you coming home?”_ Weiss asks finally.

Yang sighs and rubs her temple. “I don’t know. I’m looking into another contract further south. It starts Monday.”

 _“Are you fucking kidding me?”_ Weiss sounds so genuinely offended it’s startling. _“What am I supposed to tell Ruby?”_

“Does it matter? She’s got you, doesn’t she?”

_“Yes, but-”_

“Say what you mean, Weiss. Don’t hide behind my sister.”

 _“I’m not the one who’s hiding!”_ Weiss practically snarls.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Miss I-Went-To-Atlas-And-Fucked-A-Stripper.”

_“I already told you, I didn’t fuck a stripper!”_

“So not the point,” Yang says dryly.

_“God, you’re obnoxious.”_

Yang snorts. “It takes one, baby.”

Weiss makes a sound that most closely equates an audible rolling of the eyes.

“Listen, I’m allowed to have my post break up space, okay? You and my sister are all loved up, and that’s fine, but I need time, Weiss, and you need to respect that.”

Weiss is quiet for a moment. _“...Okay. Fine. But please understand it’s not easy for me either. You’re not the only one having a hard time.”_

Yang frowns. Something coils inside her.  “What do you mean?”

 _“What do you think I mean? I mean I miss you, idiot. And before you remind me, again, that I have Ruby. Yes, I_ know _I have Ruby. But I don’t have you anymore and it’s… honestly been a lot harder than I was anticipating not to talk to you everyday.”_

Yang’s insides coil tighter. “Oh.”

 _“Look, if you really think about it,”_ Weiss says, _“and I’m sure you haven’t because you’re_ you _, we’ve been together pretty continuously for a long time. After Blake died and Ruby ran off it was just the two of us for nearly a year, and even after she came back it wasn’t like things returned to normal overnight. It was still just the two of us, plus Jaune, running interference and managing her care and trying to look after her together. We have always been together, Yang. Since you found me in that cage at your mother’s camp, we’ve always been together.”_

It’s true. Yang realizes, with no small amount of shock. She stares across the lamp-lit room at a stock painting of sailboats and quietly reels as her mind flips back through several years’ worth of memories, recataloging, reassessing.

“You’re right,” she murmurs.

 _“I know I’m right. I’ve only been thinking about it for a month,”_ Weiss lowers her voice, _“because I’ve been sharing a bed every night with the girl I’ve loved since I was 17, and all I can think about are all the beds you and I have shared over the years. Did you know you snore after sex? Just a little bit, just softly, but she doesn’t at all, and it’s so weird that I know that. I can’t even tell anyone because it’s supposed to be a secret. I feel like I’m slowly driving myself insane.”_

“Weiss-”

 _“I love you,”_ Weiss says, quickly, assuredly.

The words hit Yang with the force of a cannonball, and she has to lie back against the couch, winded, exhausted, exhaling weakly into the receiver.

“You-... You never said anything,” she replies stiltedly, in a thick and completely unrecognizable tone of voice.

But Weiss seems to understand. _“I never got the chance.”_

“I…”

 _“I know.”_ A quiet sniff carries through the speaker. _“I just thought you should hear it. At least once, because you seem to think you’re some kind of martyr for letting me go, but it’s not that cut and dry.”_

“I’m- I’m sorry.”

_“I think we both are. Goodnight, Yang.”_

The line goes dead.

-

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: make sure to leave a comment and say hey! we writers appreciate that sort of stuff <3
> 
> also, come yell at me on tumblr @aeschylusrex


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